OP Full Blast: From the East
by TheRealEvanSG
Summary: Damon D. Digger is just your average New York City street kid - - that is, until his dad throws him into the world of One Piece on a quest to save the multiverse! Now he's forced to battle an army of demons, Senshi, other demigods, and monsters. Meanwhile, he has to deal with a weird prophecy and... a girl Luffy? FemLuffy Fem!Luffy LuffyxOC. Book 1 of the series. Book 2 is out.
1. No 1: Welcome to One Piece!

**TheRealEvanSG here with a quick message! So I was just sitting in school one day when this fanfic idea came to me. What if a guy from our world fell into the world of One Piece, and what if he was a demigod? Then I thought... nah, too cliche. So then I decided, what if that happened, but when he goes there, something's wrong: Luffy's a freakin' hawt GIRL?! I've always liked the idea of a girl Luffy, but I've never really had a good plot line for a story containing something like that. Well, now I do!**

Damon: Yeah, yeah, on to the story all ready, baka. You're boring the audience.

GIRL LOOK AT DAT BODEH!

Damon: ...You gay, bro?

No! Just listnin' to Sexy and I Know It.

Damon: ...

**Um, yeah, anyway, I do not own One Piece, nor do I own any characters in this story except for any original ones you see. And while we;re on the subject of characters, please give me ideas for bad guys! Try to make 'em crazy 'cause most of the bad guys in the original canon ****_are_**** crazy. Okay, chapter start! **

* * *

**CHAPTER 1**

Aeso, Demon or God?

Welcome to One Piece!

* * *

You know how in horror movies, oftentimes there's a character running into a dark alleyway at night, chased by some maniacal killer dude, when really they should've just stayed in the main city, where it's crowded and safer? Well, obviously I should pay more attention to horror movies, because that's exactly what was happening to me late one night in August. I'd been running from him for about half an hour now, lugging my black, wheeled suitcase behind me, totally freaking out because I could feel evil in the air. Or maybe that was just my nerves. I didn't know and my brain wasn't working enough to care. All my brain cells where concentrated on one thought process: Get away from creepy thing behind me.

My legs ached. I looked back, wondering if I'd lost him.

Nope. The demonic figure was still there, bat-like wings spread frighteningly, poking through his black and red cape that fluttered in the slight summer breeze. His evil, glowing red eyes stared deep into the heart of my soul, and a deadly scythe hung sheathed on a belt at his side. He was tall, about seven foot by my estimate, which shouldn't even be possible. His shoulders were broad and his body was rippled with firm muscles, making him very intimidating. He wore a navy blue shirt with jeans that, on anyone else, would've looked very cool, but on him just looked weird. He was strolling casually through the alley, like he owned the entire city and had all night to do this, but the expression on his face was one of slight annoyance.

I squeaked bravely and tried to run faster. This guy was a demon, a monster straight out of Hell, and he wanted me dead.

My future looked _so very _bright.

As I ran, I thought of something and mentally slapped myself. I was a Christian, and a hardcore Christian at that. I never even say "Oh my God" unless it's part of a prayer. So if I pray to God now, he'll save me from this demon, right? I clasped my hands together and thought a quick prayer. I would've said it, but I was to out of breath from running. _Dear God, I've always tried to follow your laws to the T. I've never hurt anyone unless they were hurting someone I cared about, or were beating up innocent people on the streets. I've always tried to go to church on Sundays, and I when couldn't make it, I held a mass by myself. I never took anything from anyone except freely given. So please, save me from this demon guy, or whatever he is!_

Nothing happened. I wasn't sure what I was expecting; maybe a gust of wind that would blow the demon back to Hell, or possibly a bolt of lightning frying him to evil ashes, or maybe a flash of light teleporting me somewhere he couldn't find me. But I certainly wasn't expecting nothing. In fact, if anything, the demon just got closer. I had played my final card, and it had turned out to be a dud.

At the realization that I was all alone, I lost all strength to run and just collapsed in the alley. My legs burned with pain from running so far so fast. My hand was clutching at my suitcase like it was a lifeline. I was out of energy. My breath came in ragged, pained gasps. Adrenaline pumped through my body, not helping to calm me down at all.

I seriously hoped this was all some crazy dream I was having, but the pain in my muscles told me otherwise.

I was curled up in a ball, back turned from the monster and face inches away from the alleyway street. A demonic shadow crept over me, filling me with a deathly cold feeling. There was an ear-rattling scrape of metal on metal, and a long pole with a wickedly sharp-curved edge was added to the shadow. My blood turned to ice, and I slowly turned around, dreading what I would see.

Sure enough, the demon was standing over me, eye twitching a little, spinning his scythe hand-over-hand. Evil radiated off of him. He was a heat lamp from the Underworld. I decided right then and there that I hated heat lamps.

"**Ah, finally.**" the demon rasped. "**Why didn't you just stay in one place? I'm here to give you a new life, to grant your wish from earlier today. Plus, Vio said that you're the only one for the job and if you stay like this, the world will end, so granting your wish is like an added bonus.**"

I stared. Fear was restricting my brain from working properly, but his words were weird. "Erm, sorry, d-did you say you're g-going to g-give me a new l-life?" That sounded dangerous. Did he want me to become his demon apprentice or something? Seeing as I was a hardcore Christian, that didn't seem likely, but who knew?

"**Well, duh. I mean, what did you think I was here to do? Kill you or something?**" he laughed so hard that I couldn't help feeling a bit stupid.

I frowned. "W-well, actually... yeah." I admitted sheepishly. I didn't trust him at all, but if he wasn't here to kill me... a flicker of hope burned in the back of my mind. "Uh... wh-who's Vio? Whaddya mean I-I'm the only o-one for the j-job? What job?"

"**Ah, yes, straight to business.**" The demon nodded in approval. "**First of all, my name's Aeso, and I'm god of the ocean and creativity. You're my son, so you're a demigod who can control water, breathe underwater, and negate most Devil Fruit powers. Besides that, anything you dream from this point on has the potential to become reality. Oh, and Vio's the goddess of fortune and fate.**"

I stared. "You're a god."

"**That I am.**"

"But there's only one God, and that's _God_. So... you can't be a god." My disbelief was what was causing me not to stutter.

The demon smiled. "**Your faith will do you much good when you need it most, child, but I _am_ a god. I'm not holy or deserving of worship like _the_ God, no, but I'm a god all the same. Born out of His thoughts, my brothers and sisters and I are even closer genetically to Him then His angels and you humans.**"

"...Even other gods believe in God?" I deadpanned. "That's... crazy. How do you even expect me to believe you? You're a freakin' DEMON!"

Aeso - the demon - the god - ah, whatever the Hell you wanna call him, glared at me. "**I AM NOT A DEMON!**" he bellowed in exasperation. "**Why do people always think that when they first see me?!**"

"It might have s-something to do w-with the f-fact that you've g-got bat wings, a s-scythe, and g-glowing red eyes," I said as sarcastically as I could. Damn. My stutter was returning because of him flipping like that.

"**Curse my appearance,**" Aeso sighed, eye twitching a little. "**I was born with all the ugly features of my family. Not even the REAL demons look like this, and I only have enough power to hold a purely human form for a few hours!**"

Something else he said clicked. "And... hold it, did you say I'm your _son?!_"

"**Well, yes,**" he agreed. "**You are my son, Damon Daniel Digger.**"

A tic mark pulsed at the back of my head at this. I hated my name. Damon wasn't so bad, kinda cool actually, but all three words put together was very irking. Honestly, what where my parents _thinking, _naming me that? No, wait, not parents, _parent_. My mom, to be exact. My birth dad had no say in my name because just after I was born, he went out to the ocean and got lost at sea. At least, that's the story my mother told me. It sounded like something out of a shitty Percy Jackson book.

Wait.

Lost at _sea._

Aeso said he was the god of the _ocean_ and creativity.

The little part of my brain that was still sane put the pieces together. "Hell no," I gulped.

"**Hell _yes_. I am actually quite handsome. Er, in my human form that is. Anyway, Damon, yes, basically you are a demigod and you're also the direct grandson of _the_ God. As for what the quest it... you'll find that out once you get there.**"

"No way. I'm not trusting anything a demon says," I said, shoving the worm of doubt that had snaked into my thoughts, back to to the back of my mind.

Aeso sighed. "**Very well. I suppose I'll have to prove it to you by sending you to Luffyverse now... I suppose explanations will have to wait until later.**" He frowned thoughtfully. "**It's really too bad I don't have any Mindphones at the moment... Ah well. Here goes nothing... Please save the world, by way. It'd be very bad for everybody if you fail.**"

"Save the world? What-" I never got the chance to finish.

Instead, colors flooded my vision. I got this major headache, like the biggest headache in the history of headaches, and as the pain built in my head, I faintly heard Aeso say, "**I'll be seein' ya around, buddy. Don't get too hurt.**"

And then I passed out.

Lame.

* * *

When I came to, I still had the headache, and for a scary moment, I couldn't remember anything. I couldn't remember who I was, or where I was from. I couldn't remember whether I was a boy or a girl, and I couldn't remember how old I was. My memory was a total blank.

And then my headache cleared and my memories flooded back.

Yes, that's right. I was Damon Daniel Digger, from the streets of New York, New York, or the Big Apple, or whatever the heck you wanted to call it. My mom, a single, divorced woman by the name of June, had been murdered in our small apartment, and when I came home from class that day in my Sophomore year of highschool to find her corpse lying mangled on her bed, I'd freaked out, grabbed a few necessary survival items and forced them into my suitcase (namely, two week's worth of clothes, toiletries, my iPod, my laptop, the corresponding chargers for them, and the $100 I'd been saving), called the cops, and ran from home.

Why'd I run away when all it did was land me as the top suspect in my mother's murder until the real killer was caught by total accident?

Simple. After all the reading and anime-watching I'd done (yeah, I was kind of an otaku), I'd learned that orphanges were equivalent to hell for kids. And since I didn't have any other family except for mom, who was now dead (curse Dad for getting lost at sea!), an orphange was exactly where I was headed. I was not going to let that happen, not for the life of me.

And so started my life as a street delinquent.

Somehow I managed to hold my own on the streets. I learned to fight under the instruction of a middle-aged homeless guy called Cracked-Up Kane, which was due to the fact that he was never seen without - yep, you guessed it - crack. Despite the fact that he was constantly high, he was actually a very nice guy, and willing to do whatever it took to help a friend.

The day Cracked-Up Kane and I first met was a hot day in my first summer. Summer had started not too long after my mom's murder, and I was starving, scavenging food from garbage cans. I know. It was about as fun as it sounded, which wasn't fun at all. But somehow I was still alive, and by avoiding the police, I managed not to get sent to 1) jail for questioning on my mom's death or 2) the orphanage. Anyway, I was little more than skin-and-bones, sitting on the sidewalk with one hand on my suitcase, looking hopefully up at the passersby, wondering if someone would be kind enough to spare a few dollars, which would be more than enough to buy a meal at McDonald's.

Instead of nice citygoers, I got angry thugs.

These guys where a group of three school kids I'd beaten up the week before, back when I still had the strength _to_ beat people up. They'd been picking on an innocent girl, and I never liked guys who tried to... do what they were doing to her. So I handed their asses to them on a silver platter and walked away, leaving the girl to wonder who the hell I was and the guys to collect dust on the streets.

"Hey, you bastard!" The lead guy growled. He wore your typical gangster get-up: Baggy pants, black coat, white shirt, backwards cap, you know the drill. The two behind him were dressed similarly, plus shades and minus the cap. They looked like total idiots.

"This is payback for last week, punk!" Ugly Number One, the guy on the left, drawled.

"Yeah, man, we won't let you get away with what you did to us," Ugly Number Three, the guy on the right, slurred.

"Prepare for a major ass-beatin'!" Ugly Number Two, the ringleader, growled. A sadistic glint sparked in his eye and I glared up at him.

"Oh, so you make yourselves feel better by beating up the weak and those unable to fight back?" I hissed, oozing venom. _Man_ did I hate people like that. "Hell's got a special place for you three."

"Leave him alone, punks," a voice behind the lamppost I was sitting against said.

I turned in surprise. "Who are you?"

"C-C-C-Cracked-Up Kane!" one of the thugs gulped.

"I heard he's crazy."

"He's got a freakin' blackbelt in karate, ju-jitsu, _and _tae-kwon-do!"

"Let's get out of here!"

And with that, I never saw them again.

* * *

Anyway, immediately upon waking up and regaining my memories, I noticed that the room I was in was unlike anything I was used to. For one thing, the bed felt uber-comfy, though that might've been because I hadn't slept on a proper bed for about two years. Also, the entire place rocked. Which made me feel like throwing up.

When I opened my eyes after the initial sick-in-my-stomach feeling passed (which probably took a good hour) I noticed the last weird thing about my room. It had a single window which wasn't actually a window; it was a porthole. Like on an old-time ship. A _porthole_. And it overlooked the freakin' ocean!

"WHY AM I ON A SHIP?!" I bellowed in shock.

I could tell it was nighttime because the stars where showing outside, and a single oil lamp burned on a table behind me, so I must not have been out for too long. Thought that was weird, too. As a result of major air pollution, I had never seen stars before. Just looking at the stars felt like a dream come true. They were so pretty, and there were so many... it blew my mind. Seeing stars on a screen and seeing them in real life was nothing alike.

Great. Now I sound like a sappy girl.

I was brought out of my thoughts with the sound of the opening of a door.

I looked in that direction and blinked. The person who had just came into the room with me was a somewhat familiar, very cute redheaded girl with... with gigantic melons that served as her chest. Normally that would just look ugly on a girl, but this one's chest only made her look hotter. I blushed a little. Then I beat myself up internally for being a pervert.

"Who are you?" I asked.

"My name's Nami," she said with a smile. "Who are you?"

"Damon, Digger D. Damon," I said. I wasn't sure why I'd put my last name first, or changed my middle name to the initial D., but whatever I said made her blink.

"Oh, really? You've got the middle initial D. like my captain, huh?" Nami asked curiously. "Huh..."

"Yeah, I do," I nodded. "Who's your captain?"

Her answer made my jaw drop.

"Monkey D. Lucy."

_No way, no way, no way..._ I stared at her, eyes wide and my jaw so low it was touching the floor. _Monkey D. Luffy? But that's a fictional character! Hold on, didn't she just say her name was Nami? Come to think of it, she looks exactly like a real-life version of the Nami in One Piece, the navigator of the Straw Hats' ship... And I'm on a freakin' boat! WHAT THE HELL'S GOING ON HERE?_

I decided with an option that made sense.

"You're very good at cosplaying," I told her.

Nami tilted her head, clearly confused.. "Eh? Cosplaying? What's that?"

I frowned. "You... you don't know what cosplaying is?"

"No. It sounds like some sort of game, though..."

"Oh, _kuso_!' I cursed. For some reason, I automatically said the Japanese word for 'shit'. I had no idea why, but my brain just randomly forced it out of my mouth. "This is not good... tell me, where am I?"

The redhead blinked, then smiled. "You're on my crew's ship, the _Going Merry_. We just got it from our newest crew member, Usopp's, friend Kaya."

My brain raced. Okay, so somehow I was in the world of One Piece, on the Going Merry. Also, it was probably sometime between the Syrup Village Arc and the Baratie Arc in the timeline, based on what Nami had just said and the fact that she was here and not left.

"Yep this is definitely a dream," I decided. "Nami, slap me."

"Um... what?"

"Slap me. Across the face. This is a dream and I'm gonna wake up from it."

She raised an eyebrow and shrugged. "Okaaaay..." She slapped me across the face.

_WHACK!_

"YOWCH! THAT HURT!" I screeched, tending to a reddening bruise on my cheek. "WHY DOES IT HURT?! YOU DON'T FEEL PAIN IN DREAMS!"

"Well, unless I'm having the same dream as you, you're not dreaming," Nami told me, sounding slightly amused.

It was then that Aeso's words came back to me: _Very well. I suppose I'll have to prove it to you by sending you to Luffyverse now._

By the Luffyverse, did he mean the world of One Piece?

"So, uh, can I meet Luffy? I need to talk to him about something," I said, thinking fast.

Nami frowned in confusion again. "Luffy? I don't know any Luffy. But my captain's Lucy..."

"...Say what now?"

"My captain's Lucy. You can see her."

Lucy? Her? ...The hell? I didn't know what she was going on about, but I decided to play along.

"Okay, take me to... Lucy," I nodded.

"OI! LUCY! THE GUY FROM THE SKY WANTS TO MEET WITH YOU!" She shouted. "AND HIS NAME'S DAMON!"

I heard much scurrying outside the room, and then the door to the infirmary was flung open to reveal another girl, as well as a quick glimpse of the deck of the ship and the ocean.

The new girl was short and had a bandadged-up chest. How did I know this? She was shamelessly wearing a low v-cut red vest, which was luckily buttoned up. Her blue shorts only barely passed her thighs, and I wondered if this girl cared about her appearance at all. Her eyes were a beautiful hazel, and a straw hat with a red band strapped around it perched on her onyx black, long hair. A thin scar cut across her eye, but somehow that only made her cuter.

I once again found myself blushing as I looked at the girl. "Stop being such a freakin' _pervert_, Damon!" I muttered to myself, tapping on my head.

That was when I realized something. This girl looked _exactly_ like the pictures online I'd seen of a female Monkey D. Luffy. Somehow... somehow I had fallen into the world of One Piece, but Luffy was a freakin' GIRL!

"Hey, mystery angel!" she cheered. "You're finally awake!"

"How... Whu..." I stuttered. Wow, such great linguistic skills, Damon.

"That's Lucy," Nami told me, side-eyeing the girl. "She's stuck on believing that you're an angel, since you fell from the sky and all."

"I... fell from the sky?"

"So are you an angel?" Lucy asked, literally jumping up and down in excitement. "Are you are you are you?"

"Sheesh, take a breath, and no, I'm not." I sweatdropped.

"Told you he wasn't," a man's voice muttered. And in stepped the most bad-ass guy I'd ever seen.

He was tall and muscular, and his body was heavily scarred. His oily head was topped with a tangle of green hair, and his face was fixed in a bored, sleepy expression. Three swords hung by his side. He wore a dirty, white shirt and dark green pants. A green bandana... no... haramaki was tied around his left wrist.

"No way," I said in awe. "Roronoa Zoro?"

He scowled. "Who the hell are you, and why did you fall from the sky?" He sounded exactly like the Japanese voice actor, if he had an English accent and spoke English.

"The name's Digger D. Damon," I said, and with a smile, I shook both Lucy's and Zoro's hands. Lucy's was feminine but slightly callused, whereas Zoro's was thick and sweaty. I gritted my teeth and winced. Zoro's grip was _really_ tight. "I didn't even know I fell from the sky. Say, did a suitcase fall with me?"

All three of them looked to my left. "Oh, you mean that thing?" Nami asked, pointing to a very familiar black suitcase leaning up against the infirmary bed.

I grinned wider. "That's the one! Thank goodness this baby's here with me..."

"Why?" Lucy wondered. "Is it important? Is it an angel?"

I sweatdropped again. "Er... no. It's not an angel."

"Is it worth money?!" Nami shouted eagerly, her eyes changing into belli signs like in the anime.

Zoro and I both sweatdropped at that.

"Ah... no." I told them. "Actually, it's pretty much been my home for the past two years."

"Your home? That thing?" The greenhaired swordsman said skeptically. "Doesn't look big enough to be a home for a cat."

"I've been living in the streets, OK?" I grumbled. "All my necessary survival items are in that suitcase, so as far as I'm concerned, yes, it's my home."

"You live on the streets?" said Lucy in awe. "Wow, you must be really strong!"

"...No, not really. I mean, I can hold my own in a fight, but..." I decided to change the subject. "Anyway, you guys are pirates, right?"

"Yeah, how'd you know?" Lucy asked excitedly.

"...I can see into the future," I told her after thinking for a second.

"EH!? YOU MEAN YOU'RE A FORTUNE TELLER! SUGOOOOOI!"

Nami and Zoro frowned at me, looking like they didn't buy in to all this.

"Okay, um, first of all, the last island you visited was Gecko Island, right?" I began. It was kinda rhetoric. "And there you defeated the notorious Captain Kuro, who was supposed to have been killed by the Marines three years ago. In reality, however, he went in hiding and began scheming to steal Kaya's fortune. You met Usopp-san there. Also, before that you guys defeated Buggy the Clown in Orange Town, and before _that_ Lucy-chan saved Zoro-san from being executed at the Marine Base on Shell's Island." I wasn't sure why I added the honorifics to the ends of their names. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that random Japanese words were mixed in with the English ones?

Zoro glared at me suspiciously. "How'd you know all that?!"

"I told you, I can see into the future. I... had a vision."

"Ne, you're awesome!" Lucy exclaimed, eyes sparkling anime-style.

I blushed a little. I've never received much praise, except from Cracked-Up Kane whenever I got stronger. "Oh, and you'reeither just sailing now, or you're heading to the Baratie."

"Nanda? What's the Baratie?" Lucy asked curiously.

"A famous sea restaurant."

Lucy's stomach growled. "RESTAURAUNT!? I can taste the food from here..."

I burst into laughter. Even Zoro managed to crack a smile. I guess that, girl or boy, Luffy is Luffy.

"Hey, you should join my crew, Damon!"

I blinked and looked at Lucy, who'd just spoken. "Really?"

"Hai! You could be our pyschic!"

And that was how I became a part of the great Straw Hat Pirates. Who knows what awkward situations will come out of this, with Luffy being a girl and all, but this is my life now, and somehow or another, I know it will work out. A quote I'd heard a long time ago said, _It always turns out good in the end. If it's not good, it's not the end_.

* * *

**And thus ends chapter 1.**

Damon: What a shitty ending.

Shut the hell up, bro. I'm the author here, got it?

Damon: ...Can I at least kick ass soon?

Just because you asked... NO.

Damon: EH!? What a shit-author...

Lucy: Pleashe rate und revoo!

Nami: Don't talk with your mouth full of meat, Luce...

* * *

**-TheRealEvanSG**


	2. No 2: Mixed Feelings!

**Chapter 2 has arrived! Everybody dance now~!**

Damon: ...No.

D:

Damon: Yeah, yeah, go cry yourself to sleep. By the way, TheRealEvanSG does not own the One Piece plotline, characters, or environments. The only thing he does own is me and any of the originalities in this story, such as Aeso and the other gods and demons.

**Chapter start!**

* * *

Mixed Feelings!  


Enter Johnny!  


* * *

The day was calm and warm. The sun shone brightly upon the small caravel with the goat figurehead and the blank canvas sail. A sixteen-year-old girl with a straw hat sat happily on her 'special seat,' otherwise known as the figurehead. Behind her on the upper deck, a seventeen-year-old boy wearing a leather jacket, tennis shoes, jeans, and a deep green shirt sat on the railing, the little hair he had blowing in the slight breeze.

That was me, Damon Daniel Digger, or as I'm more commonly known in this new world I'm in, Digger D. Damon.

Just last night I had joined the crazy pirate crew known as the Strawhats after falling from the sky and landing on the lower deck, effectively freaking out Usopp, or so I'm told. Then again, it doesn't take much to scare that wimp. When I came to, I was introduced to Zoro, the green-haired first mate, Nami, the cute redheaded navigator, and Lucy, the captain. Naturally, when I realized Luffy wasn't captain, I freaked out internally, but I'm slowly adjusting to the fact that he's a girl in this world. Apparently whenever that bastard Aeso ripped me from my own world and threw me in this one, he put me in a different dimension than the anime and manga.

Just my luck, right?

Today marks my first day as a Straw Hat. I've been having mixed feelings about being one ever since I woke up in the boy's cabin this morning. For one thing, I joined as their psychic, and if all of what Aeso said is true, then I'm also a demigod, which they know nothing about. Joining their crew would make them help me on this quest he said I have to take, and that could put the whole crew in danger. I can't do that to them! I mean, I know they're super strong and they almost never lose any battles they face, but still! We're talking about _gods _and _demons_ here.

As I thought about all this, I found myself unconsciously humming the tune to the second ending of One Piece, _Run, Run, Run_. I immediately stopped.

"Ne, why'd you stop, Damon?" Lucy whined from the figurehead. "That was a cool tune!"

I blushed, embarrassed that somebody heard me. A street kid wasn't supposed to sing. Or hum. Or whistle. Or anything like that. Then again, here in the One Piece universe, anything was possible, including Luffy being a girl.

I was having a bit of a hard time coming to terms with that.

Let's face it. A girl Luffy is just _weird_. I mean, sure it sounds like a cool idea in fanfiction, but when you meet her in real life, there's a whole bunch of awkward situations involved. For instance, earlier this morning, Lucy accidentally fell into the ocean while fishing and I had to jump in to save her. Well, once we got back on deck and I had stomped all the water out of her stomach (it didn't hurt her because she was rubber, after all), she took off her wet shirt. If it wasn't for her bandages, which she'd gotten from her fight with Kuro, Lucy would've flashed me her chest, and I probably would've went down with a major nosebleed, or at least my face would've been red enough to attract every bull in a fifty-mile radius, but luckily she did have those bandages.

Thank goodness for crazy con men.

Anyway, Lucy kept complaining about me not humming, and a tic mark pulsed on the back of my head. "Just shut up already, I'm not gonna hum." I muttered.

"You're no fun," the captain pouted.

"Yeah, well, you're shameless," I grumbled.

"What's shameless? Is it a food?"

Cue sweatdrop. "…No."

"Meh." She went back to her seat on the figurehead.

"Say, Lucy, why's that spot so special?"

She turned to me and grinned. "It reminds me of the time I got my scar and promised Shanks I'd learn to swim!"

I nodded. "Makes sense, I guess."

"Wait, do you mean Red Haired Shanks?" Nami asked. She'd just come from the kitchen and had apparently overhead part of our conversation. "You mentioned him on Gecko Island. How do you know him, anyway?"

"He visited my hometown when I was six," Lucy told us happily. "He's super awesome!"

"Oh."

As the day dragged on, I met Usopp, who came out of the boy's cabin and began developing random pachinko stars for his slingshot. Why he used a slingshot was beyond me. I mean, a pistol's better for a sniper, but whatever. He claimed he was captain, but I shot down that lie quickly. I didn't really like Usopp until after the Enies Lobby Arc; sure, he was great for comic relief, but all that stuff about him being the captain was disrespectful to Luffy, even if he didn't mean for it to be.

I had mixed feelings about being on the crew. On the one hand, I'd be putting them in great danger, like I'd said before. On the other hand, I might not survive in this world without their help. The Grand Line was extremely dangerous, after all, with random weather patterns and dangerous pirate crews, and since I knew nothing about navigation, sailing it alone would amount to suicide.

I hadn't officially joined the crew yet. They were still waiting for my answer. Lucy seemed to think I'd just join, though, and I had to admit, it was a tempting offer. Ever since I first discovered the One Piece anime, I'd wished that I could be a crew member of the Straw Hats, and now, unbelievably, I had that chance. All the same, if I joined, I'd eventually have to break it to them that I'm not actually from this world. I wasn't sure how they'd take that. And what would their reactions be when they found out I was actually a demigod? If Aeso was to be trusted, after all.

My mind was a battlefield, and it was eating me up on the inside.

"Hey, Damon-san, what's up?" Nami asked me at breakfast. "You seem like you're troubled."

"Am I really so easy to read?" I sighed. "Yeah, I don't know whether to join or not." I whacked Lucy's hand, which had stretched over to take my food. Since we didn't actually have a cook yet, all we were eating was some PB&J's and apples. I didn't even know they _had_ peanut butter in this world.

"It's not polite to steal other people's food, Lucy-chan," I reprimanded. "I know the bandits that you lived with constantly stole each others' food, but we're different from them. We won't steal your food."

"Lucy lived with mountain bandits?" Usopp asked in some surprise. His nose was really long. I mean, the anime and manga didn't do it justice. You couldn't appreciate it's length until you saw it in real life. "I guess that explains why she steals our food all the time, then..."

Zoro gave a 'tch' sound that clearly stated he didn't trust me yet. I didn't care one bit.

"I hate most bandits, but the Dadan Family's nice," Lucy told us happily through a mouthful of sandwich.

"For mountain bandits, they _are_ a good natured bunch," I agreed.

"How did you know that, anyway, Damon-san?" Usopp said with an eyebrow raised.

"He's a psychic," Nami informed him.

"EH?! A psychic?! Sugoi..."

"Tha's whu ai said!" Lucy managed. She still hadn't swallowed.

"Kuso-psychic."

"What was that, _M__arimo?"_

At the mention of the jerk swordsman's nickname, Nami and Usopp let loose a chuckle. Zoro's head really did look moss-covered... I wasn't sure why Zoro ticked me off so much, but he just did. In the anime, he'd been one of my favorite characters because he was so badass and loyal, but in real life he got on my nerves. I seemed to get on his nerves, too. The feeling was mutual.

Zoro glared at me. "Eh? Wanna repeat that, _Twitch?"_

A fiery aura erupted around me. I haven't mentioned it before because it's kind of embarrassing, but I've got Tourette's Syndrome. Not the kind that makes you swear a lot when you're nervous, but the kind that makes your eye twitch. "YOU WANNA GO, BROKEN COMPASS?!"

Zoro's aura was icy. "BRING IT, SHITTY PSYCHIC!"

I clenched my fist. Usopp gulped and scooted to the back wall. Lucy was laughing her heart out, her straw hat sitting lopsided on her head. "HAWK PUNCH!" I bellowed.

"ONI GIRI!" Zoro growled, pulling out his swords.

The attacks met each other at the midpoint. I surprised myself; I didn't even get hurt. In fact, it seemed that the blows were equal in strength.

"Not too shabby, kuso-pyschic," he smirked.

"You're not too bad yourself, Marimo," I growled.

-POW! POW!-

"Don't you two start fighting!" Nami barked, looking rather shark-like.

Damn, that girl could be scary. Zoro and I sat back down in our seats, nursing bumps on our heads. Like most things I'd been discovering lately, although Nami's demoness-like anger was funny in the anime, it was much different when you experienced it first-hand.

"Scary..." Usopp whimpered from his corner.

I couldn't blame him for thinking that. Truthfully, Nami scared me a little, too.

After breakfast was over, we all did different things. Lucy started working on something on the lower deck, while I took up the job of lookout. Nami went back to her navigation and Usopp fooled around by playing pirate on the upper deck. Zoro slept.

An hour passed uneventfully. Then Lucy shouted, "I'm finished!"

"With what?" I called back.

"Look, our pirate mark! Now that you've joined, we'd got five people! I'd say it's time we got a flag."

"Oh."

I joined the rest of the crew in reviewing her job. And let me just say this: IT. FREAKIN'. SUCKED.

Now, I'm usually not one to criticize unless the person I'm critiquing happens to piss me off, like Zoro, but that looked like SHIT. It was such a poor paint job it wasn't even FUNNY. Zoro's, Nami's, and Usopp's faces were fixed in various degrees of horror, and mine wasn't too far behind.

"A pirate mark is supposed to be scary. It should strike fear into our enemies' hearts," Zoro frowned.

"If our enemies were terrified _infants_, than this would be perfect." Nami supplied.

"It gives a new definition to 'abstract,'" I offered, sweatdropping. I felt like I've been doing that a lot lately.

Usopp grinned. "You guys really should've told me about this. You may not know this about me, but I happen to be an artist."

Zoro raised an eyebrow.

"Does that mean you can draw?" Lucy wondered in awe.

"Heh! When it comes to painting, I'm in a league of my own! I've been drawing for fifty years."

"WHOA! Fifty _years_!?"

"That would mean he's an old man by now."

"Which would give him five or six grandchildren and I don't see 'em."

"Not to mention he'd be bald." I put in.

"SUGOOOI~!"

"Oi." Usopp drew his hand across his face, slightly put down by our teasing. But he got the job anyway.

Usopp's first painting was a jolly roger that looked suspiciously like him. It had a long nose, bandanna, and a slingshot. It earned him hits on the back of the head from Lucy, Zoro, and I. His next one was much better, featuring the exact same mark that was in the anime. I had to admit, the liar may have been an idiot, but he sure was a good artist.

"So, how do you like _this_ one?" Usopp said smugly.

"Wow, that's actually pretty good, Usopp!" praised Nami.

"Yeah, keep it! That's the one!" Lucy agreed.

"Good job, long nose," I nodded in approval.

"Oi."

"So we've finally settled on it? This is gonna be our mark?" Zoro asked.

"Sure is! Oi, Usopp, draw one on the sail, too!"

"Right."

Once that was done, the Going Merry was complete, even if its crew wasn't. The straw-hatted skull definitely added a sense of finality to the whole thing. I almost felt like a true Straw Hat, even though I wasn't really one yet. Lucy proclaimed her approval to the world, and everybody agreed.

* * *

_BOOM!_ The sound of a cannon firing woke me up from my short nap in the crow's nest. I almost called out to the crew that a pirate ship was here, but that would've been pointless for two reasons; 1) They were already firing their cannons, and 2) there wasn't a pirate ship. Except for ours. Or rather, theirs. I really should stop thinking of myself as a Straw Hat...

"Way off the mark..." came Lucy's slightly disappointed voice.

"Oi, what's going on down there?" I heard Zoro complain.

"Yeah, what are you doing now?" I groaned. "I was having such a good nap..."

"Cannon firing practice! But it's not going very well."

"Like I said, let the expert aim the thing," Usopp chided.

"Oh, is that all?" I sighed. "Whatever."

"Judging from the angle of the last one, I think this should do the trick. FIRE!" _BOOM! SMASH!_

"Awesome!" Idiot #1 cheered. "You got that on the first try!"

"Wow, I did... Ha! Whaddya think? I'm pretty magnificent when it comes to aiming, so are you impressed yet?"

"Yeah! I can't believe it! So it's all settled. You'll be our sniper."

"Wait! I don't get to be _captain?!"_

"No, I'm still the captain!"

* * *

At lunch, Usopp and Lucy were still arguing. I wasn't sure why that liar wanted to be captain so bad, since he was such a coward. Anyway, once they'd finally stopped fighting, Lucy said, "You know guys, I've been thinking. Now that we've got five people, there's one last position we need to fill before we head to the Grand Line!"

"I'm not a part of your crew yet, Luce." I reminded her.

"You're right." agreed Nami, completely ignoring me. "This kitchen's really nice. Just pay me and I'll do it."

"I suppose it is vital for long trips," Zoro conceded, sleeping against the fridge.

"No decent pirate ship should be without one... a musician!"

"Ugh! Are you an idiot?"

"Yes, Zoro," I told him. "She is."

"What do you think we're doing out here?" Our navigator groaned.

"And here I thought you were gonna say something _smart_." complained Usopp.

"The word _'smart'_ isn't in her vocabulary, Usopp-san." I said.

"We're pirates and pirates sing a lot, didn't you know?"

_SMASH! _The sound of a barrel breaking into pieces shocked everybody.

"Get out here ya damn pirates!" An upset voice called from the deck.

I blinked. "Who's that?"

Lucy went outside. "What the hell? Who are you?"

"Shut up! Who I am doesn't matter, you stinking pirates!"

_SMASH! _"Whoa!"

Nami and Usopp were at the porthole, looking out at the deck and trying to figure out what the hell was going on. Zoro asked them how many guys were out there, to which Nami replied, "Uh... one."

"Then just let her handle it."

Lucy and the dude on the deck shouted some more, and Zoro looked up at the ceiling. "That voice..." There was the sound of someone getting smashed into the wall. He stepped out the kitchen and said, "Johnny. Tell me that isn't you."

Nami looked at me in confusion and I just shrugged.

"Zoro-Aniki! What are you doin' here?" said who I assumed to be Johnny.

"It _is_ you! Where's Yosaku? Why isn't he with you?"

"What's going on?" Lucy asked, totally confused. "Do you guys know each other or something?"

I, however, suddenly remembered.

It looked like we were going to see the Baratie soon!

* * *

**Woop! Woop! Chapter 2 done and done!**

Damon: I don't like you. I don't get to kick ass yet!

Ah, quit your whining. You'll get to fight a new addition to Don Krieg's crew. And if you hate me now, just wait until you see what the original arc I came up with has in store for you! Muahahahahaha!

Damon: You need to work on your evil laugh...

Lucy: I'm still confused here, guys! Who the hell is Johnny?

You'll find out next chapter. Now shut up and wait for me to write it. Here's some meat.

Lucy: YAY! MEAT!

Strawhats + Damon: *sweatdrop*

Don't forget to R&R!

**-TheRealEvanSG**


	3. No 3: Bounty Hunters and Sanji!

**A new chapter and the introduction of the ero-cook! Yes, Damon will get very ticked off by Sanji.**

Damon: That bastard! He better keep his hands off Lucy...

SOMEONE'S IN LOOOOOVE~

Damon: Sh-Shut up!

I see you're not denying it!

Damon: I SAID TO SHUT UP!

**Chapter 3 start! (Before Damon murders me in my sleep...)**

* * *

The Bounty Hunting Duo, Johnny and Yosaku!

Also Introducing the Fighting Cooks of the Baratie

* * *

"Hey, look! Zoro knows that guy!" Usopp muttered.

"What's going on here?" Nami wondered.

Down on the lower deck, Zoro and Johnny were laying a sickly man on a green beach towel while everyone but Nami was watching in concern. He was pale and looked like hell. This was Yosaku, and he was dangerously sick. Nami went out of the kitchen to examine the situation.

"He just got worse and worse and I didn't know what to do!" Johnny cried. Zoro placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder. Who knew that jerk could be so comforting? "So I thought, maybe we could just rest on a little island. But then a cannonball came flying into our ship!"

I winced. That would be Lucy and Usopp's 'cannon firing practice.'

Johnny broke down in tears and the idiot duo's jaws dropped in horror. They leapt to their feet and bowed in unison. "Gomenasai!"

"Sorry isn't good enough," Johnny told them. "Isn't that right… partner?!"

"!"

He looked up to Zoro, tears pouring out of his eyes. "Aniki, give it to me straight. Is he gonna die?"

The master swordsman gritted his teeth. Nami finally reached us, muttering, "Baka!"

"Watch it!" Zoro growled.

"He's not gonna die, he just has scurvy," I told the crew while Nami pulled Yosaku's tongue and checked his eyes.

"He's right," she confirmed. "Lucy, Usopp, we have some limes in the storage. What are you doing? Go get 'em now!"

They shot over to the storage room, stumbling into each other in the doorway but eventually bringing out a barrelful of the fruits that looked like green lemons. Under Nami and my instructions, they squeezed the juice of the limes into Yosaku's, open mouth.

"So what's scurvy?" Usopp asked.

"It used to be a hopeless disease that plagued sailors, but we just know how to deal with it now," Nami said. "Honestly, don't you guys know anything? At least Damon seems to have basic knowledge of the sea. Anyway, Johnny'll be just fine in a couple of days."

"Really, Aneki?" Johnny said enthusiastically, spitting in Nami's face by accident. "Sugoi, Aneki!"

"It's not like I'm a magician. And stop calling me that, it's stupid."

"_I'm_ the psychic, here," I told him. "Digger D. Damon at your service!"

"Really? Sugoi, Damon-aniki!"

"Ah, it's nothing."

Usopp and Lucy continued squeezing lime juice into Yosaku's mouth. Meanwhile, Nami explained about scurvy. "It's a disease caused by a deficiency of vitamin C. Back in the old days, they didn't store fruit because they didn't know how, but we do now."

Lucy ignored her. "If a little's good, a lot's gooder." She stuffed a bunch of limes in the sick man's mouth and turned to her navigator. "You're really smart! You're like a doctor!"

Usopp bragged about something. I wasn't quite sure what he had to brag about.

"Yep, she's smart as a tack." Lucy nodded.

"YOU GUYS ARE JUST BAKAS! EVERY SAILOR SHOULD KNOW ABOUT _SCURVY!_" And cue the demoness.

Suddenly Yosaku spit out the limes and sat up, suddenly looking much better.

"…Huh?" Nami blinked.

The bounty hunter duo did their 'hooray hooray' dance, which let me just say was one of the stupidest things I'd ever seen, and I've been seeing a lot of stupid lately, and claimed that Yosaku was all better.

"YOU CAN'T HEAL THAT QUICKLY!"

The two stopped dancing and stood straight. In unison, they said, "Allow us to introduce ourselves."

"My name's Johnny."

"And I'm Yosaku."

"**Together we're the baddest bounty hunting duo in the world!** **Zoro-aniki there used to be one of us.**"

"Glad to make your acquaintance," Yosaku finished.

Zoro smirked and walked forward. "Small world. Never thought I'd see you guys again."

"Well if you think _you're_ surprised…"

"…We never imagined that the great pirate hunter Zoro would become a pirate himself!"

"Tell me about it," the first mate muttered. He and Johnny clasped hands.

"Aniki."

Yosaku reached his hand out… and promptly collapsed.

"I TOLD YOU YOU COULDN'T HEAL THAT QUICKLY!"

* * *

Later that night, Yosaku had been placed in the boy's cabin while he got better, and we were all sitting around the table in the kitchen. Nami told us, "Let this be a lesson to you."

"Yeah, this is the kind of trouble you get yourself into when you choose a life on the sea," Zoro agreed.

Usopp piped up. "Which means when we're at sea, we've gotta learn how to get the right amount of nutrients with little food."

"It's absolutely necessary that someone on this ship knows how to do that."

Lucy took a bite of bread. "Necessary? Right! This ship needs a cook!"

We were all shocked that our idiot captain could come up with such a good idea.

"Hey, Usopp, Lucy _can_ say something smart!" I said in awe.

"I'm in!" he said. "That way we can have good food, even when we're at sea!

"That's right! You got it!" She stuck her tongue out.

"If you need a cook, I know just the place, and the food is gonna blow your minds!" Johnny spoke up.

"Whoa! Really? Do you mean that sea restaurant?"

"Yeah, the Baratie. How do you know about it?"

"I told them last night," I said.

Johnny shrugged. "Whatever. Consider yourself warned! This place is close to the Grand Line, and lately I've been hearing rumors that a certain _hawk-eyed man_ you're looking for is there." He directed the last part to his pal Zoro, who gripped his swords and looked up, his face a mixture of anticipation and anxiety. "Set a course, north-northeast!"

"Yosha!" Lucy cheered.

"Sugoi!" said Usopp.

"Shishishishishi!"

"Our destination is the Sea Restaurant, the Baratie!"

* * *

"So whaddya think?" Johnny smirked. It was two days later and we had finally arrived at our destination.

"WHOA! It's a huge fish!" said Lucy in awe.

"So lovely!" Nami agreed.

"This is the coolest place ever!" Usopp proclaimed.

"More like the weirdest place ever," I muttered. I mean, seriously. The place was one big _FISH_! It looked cool in the anime, but in real life... it was just freaky. I stared, wondering who had enough stupidity to actually build something like this. I was brought out of my slight horror, however, by the sound of warning bells.

"Ah! What the... a Marine ship?!" Long Nose worried. "All the way out here?"

Sure enough, a Marine ship was closing in on us from the right side. It was at least twice as big as the Going Merry, and it was painted blue. It's sails simply said, 'Marines'. Such great creativity, huh?

"Hey, Lucy-chan. They're not gonna start firing at us, are they?"

"Just my luck, of course the Marines would show up," Zoro grumbled.

"But... how did that ship..." Nami started.

Johnny snuck over to the boy's cabin. Its door was open and Yosaku was peeking out of it nervously. Johnny joined his brother and hid behind the door.

A man stepped forward and looked over the railing of the Marine ship. "I've never seen that mark before..." he mused. He was tall and lanky, his face tan. A scar ran across his cheek. He had little muscle but huge iron knuckles covering his hand. He wore a simple white-stripped suit over a blue shirt, and his hair was... his hair... IT WAS PINK! It was freakin' _pink_! Pink hair in real life is _ugly_. I shuttered involuntarily at the grotesqueness of his hair. I hoped I would never have to see that guy in my life again.

"I am Iron Fist Fullbody!" the Marine declared, slamming a hand on the side of his ship. "But you can just call me 'sir.' You there! Who's the captain? Identify yourself!"

"My name is Lucy!" shouted Lucy.

Usopp stepped up, too, but I hit the back of his head before he could say anything. "Don't start up, Usopp."

"We only made our flag the day before yesterday!"

"That's right, Marine, and I drew it!" Usopp bragged. A small tic mark appeared on both me and Lucy's heads.

Fullbody smirked. "Heh. You did? Is that so?" He must've noticed Johnny and Yosaku peeking from behind the door, because he said, "Hey, you two right there! I've seen you before. You're that bounty hunter duo that goes after the small fish. Right?"

"Yeah - well - we -" Johnny stuttered, shivering nervously.

"So, you've finally been caught by pirates."

"Well - actually, we -"

He chuckled. "Now that's a laugh."

"No, actually that's called a chuckle," I told him.

Zoro smirked.

A woman in a red dress with blonde hair tied up in a ponytail came out and grabbed his arm lightly. She must've been a major whore, because _nobody _I'd ever known would be willing to date a guy _that_ damned ugly.

"Hey, come on baby. Let's get going." she said.

"Sure."

"Hey, wait a minute!" Johnny called indignantly. He pulled a stack of wanted posters out of his coat pocket and threw them in the air. "You think small-time bounty hunters would go after _these guys_?"

One of them seemed to catch Nami's eye, and I could take a guess as to which one it was.

Fullbody and his girlfriend simply ignored Johnny and strolled off to the back of the ship. He told two Marine subordinates that I'd only just noticed, "They're an eyesore. Sink 'em."

"Sir!" they shouted with a salute.

Johnny and Yosaku started grumbling about being ignored and claimed that he'd better be ready the next time he saw them. Nami knelt next to the bounty posters and looked at one in particular that depicted a guy that looked even uglier than Fullbody, if that was possible. He had a long, jagged nose, blue skin, pointy teeth, and appeared to be a cross between a shark and a man.

It was the Fishman pirate, Arlong.

"Those are wanted pirates, Nami-aneki. In other words, if we defeat those guys, we get the reward money." Johnny explained.

"Pretty good business, huh, big sis?" Yosaku said smugly.

Nami crumpled Arlong's wanted poster, her body shaking. I looked at her sadly, knowing why she was so upset.

"Hey, you guys, look!" Usopp said suddenly. "They're pointing that cannon right at us!"

_BOOM!_

Lucy, who had been sitting on the railing, jumped to action. "You guys just leave it to me! Gomu-Gomu nooooo..." she gripped the mast and the figurehead's goat ear. The cannonball slammed into her slim body and she stretched far backward. She almost slammed into Zoro, but he moved out of the way at the last second. "SLINGSHOT!"

Suddenly the part of the ear that she'd grabbed onto broke off and she curved to the right. "Whoooooaaaaa! Not good!" _TWANG! _Her body retracted with the sound of a rubber band being flicked and Lucy slammed into the Merry's figure head. The cannonball went soaring in the complete wrong direction, crashing through the roof of the Baratie!

"Baka!" I sighed, face-palming.

Lucy cried anime tears.

* * *

"Dang, what's taking Lucy so long?" Usopp groaned.

"They'll probably make her work without pay for at least a month!" Nami said. "She should've just said it was the Marines' fault instead of being so freakin' honest."

Johnny and Yosaku were fixing the part of the railing of the upper deck that Johnny had broken in his short fight with Luffy. Nami and Usopp were looking at the Baratie in exasperation, probably wondering how they'd managed to hook up with such an idiot captain. Zoro was sleeping where Nami's mikan grove would soon be and I had pulled my iPod out of my suitcase, wondering if I could get on the internet in this world. If I could, it sure would be a surprise, but anything was possible in the world of One Piece.

And wouldn't you know it? I could!

_It's a good thing I didn't fall in the ocean_, I thought. _My suitcase isn't waterproof and my iPod would've gotten soaked! Still, I wonder how I'm still getting three bars even here in a world without computers, iPods, cell phones, or anything like that... Not that I'm complaining or anything._ I decided to just go with it.

The first thing I did was Google search Aeso, trying to find out anything I could about him. If he was a god, then most likely there was some sort of ancient story or something that involved him.

Myths with him in it = 0.

In fact, I couldn't get a single hit on him. It was like he was nonexistent, or at least he'd never appeared to humankind before. And what kind of demon is never seen by humans? It was strange, and I didn't like it. Not one bit.

Aeso had said the quest I've been given would be explained once I got to this world. Had it been explained yet? No, it hadn't.

He was really starting to tick me off. I mean, really! He ripped me away from my home, from everyone and everything I'd ever known, and then thrown me into the world of my favorite anime, which I had previously believed was fictional. Except he hadn't even managed to do _that _properly, and now I was stuck in an alternate universe of that world where Luffy is a freaking _GIRL!_ Not to mention that I still have no idea how to control those 'powers' he said I have, and that I have no idea what I'm supposed to actually be doing here.

If I ever saw him again, I was gonna kick his ass for doing this to me.

Johnny and Yosaku's idiot "Hooray Hooray!" dance brought me out of my angry musings. Apparently they had just finished fixing the railing, but it didn't matter to me one bit _why_ they were doing that dance.

"WOULD YOU STOP THAT?!" I bellowed, a tic mark pulsing on the back of my head.

They stopped that.

_"Someone's_ got anger issues," muttered Zoro.

"_Eh?_ Don't even get me started, Marimo!"

"Kuso-psychic!"

"Broken compass!"

"ONI GIRI!"

"HAWK PUNCH!"

"_NO FIGHTING!_"

-BAM! POW!-

"And she says she's weak," Usopp sighed.

Johnny and Yosaku brought up a rowboat from somewhere in the Going Merry and set it in the water. "Come on, minas! Let's go to the Baratie!"

"Yosha!" I cheered, my mood immediately brightening. I jumped into the rowboat. "I'm _starving_!"

"You've got mood swings like a girl," Zoro muttered.

"EH?!"

"It's gonna be a long day, isn't it?" Yosaku asked Usopp, who nodded in agreement.

* * *

When we got to the Baratie, we heard the sound of something being smashed and the tinkling of broken glass before we even set foot in the restaurant. We looked at the door in surprise. I shrugged and went to the door, easing it open. The first thing we noticed was that everybody in the joint was staring in horror at one particular table at the back. Er, if you could call it a table at all. At this point, all it really amounted to was a few legs and many splinters. Some sort of soup was spilled in the floor and the tablecloth was soaked with wine. The woman in the red dress from the Marine ship was standing a few feet to the right from it, hands over her mouth.

And in the center of the mess stood a blonde waiter clad in a clean black suit with black pants and black dress shoes, holding up that Marine dude, Fullbody, who looked like he'd just gotten his ass handed to him.

I had an inkling of a feeling on who that waiter was.

"Huh." said Zoro. "A fight."

"_Never_," the waiter growled, "waste food around me again! At sea, if you provoke your cook, you're signing your own death warrant!"

I smirked. Yep. It was definitely _that _guy.

"Oh, no the customer!" someone shouted. "Damn it, not again, Sanji! That's a customer! And can't you see he's a Marine lieutenant?" The newcomer was a big guy who wore a blue jacket over a pink shirt and had a goatee. His chin was pointy and his lips were rather large.

Sanji snorted. "You're a terrible cook. What makes you think you can talk to _me_ like that?"

"_You're_ calling _me_ bad? Restaurants can't exist without their customers. They're our lifeline, so we don't wanna hurt them the way _you_ seem to keep doing!"

"But he deserved it. He didn't treat the food or me with respect," Sanji growled._ "__And_ he insulted all the cooks!" The blonde's face was a mask of anger. He dropped the beaten Marine on the ground. "I just taught him a lesson, that's all."

"You're gonna regret this," Fullbody groaned. "All of you! No restaurant should treat its customers like this. I'll shut you down. Do you understand me?! I will shut down this entire place! This whole restaurant is finished! YOU HEAR ME!?"

"Then maybe I should just finish you off now," the cook mused.

The lieutenant gulped.

The cooks, who I'd only just noticed now were on a spiral staircase that led up to the second floor, ran forward and held Sanji back, grunting with the great effort.

"IT'S FOOLS LIKE YOU WHO THINK THEY'RE SUCH BIG SHOTS THEY CAN ORDER ANYBODY AROUND THAT REALLY PISS ME OFF!" He shouted over the other cooks, who were all telling him to calm down and let it go. "YOU'RE NOT SUCH A BIG SHOT _NOW_, ARE YA? _ARE YA!?"_

Suddenly, completely out of the blue, the ceiling broke and two people fell through it.

"What happened?" A customer asked.

"Are they okay?" someone else wondered.

"I can take a guess as to who _that_ was," I muttered.

An old man with a peg leg, a really straight beard, and an incredibly long chef's hat sat up, rubbing his head. At his feet lay - you guessed it - none other than Lucy.

"I can breathe again," she gasped.

"Chef Zeff, what's happening?" one of the cooks questioned. "You didn't hurt yourself, did you?"

"Dammit," said the tall-hatted man, Chef Zeff. He looked up in exasperation. "My ceiling! Now that old thing is gonna have to be fixed because of _you_, too! This is all _your_ fault, you damn brat!"

"It wasn't my fault!" Lucy yelled. "_You _attacked _me!_"

Suddenly they both noticed the chefs who had crowded around Sanji and who were struggling to hold him back.

"Sanji!" Zeff sighed. "Don't tell me you went on another rampage in here, you idiot!" He stood up and started walking over to his subordinate.

"Put a cork in it, jiisan!" our future crew member complained.

"Oh, now you're ordering _me_ around! Just who do you think you're talking to? You wanna sink my restaurant to the bottom of the sea? You punk!"

_BAM! _Zeff slammed his peg leg into Sanji face. Hard.

Fullbody, still on the ground, smirked, clearly pleased to see the cook getting beat up.

"And you there! Get your ass outta my restaurant!"

_WHAM!_

"How can you deny our motto that the customer is king?!" Patty growled.

"The only kingly customers we have are the ones who stomach the crap that _you_ call 'food.'" Sanji told him.

Burn.

Zeff reprimanded both of them for fighting, saying that if they wanted to, they should do so in the kitchen. Suddenly someone shouted, "Lieutenant! Lieutenant Fullbody! The prisoner from Don Krieg's crew that we were keeping on the ship has escaped and killed seven of our men already!"

"Wow, that's restaurant's crazy," said Lucy.

"Impossible!" growled Fullbody. "When we picked him up three days ago, he was on the verge of starvation! And we haven't even fed him anything! Where did he get his strength from?"

"Oh, no! Pirates!" A customer gulped.

"And the Krieg Pirates are supposed to be the strongest on the East Blue!"

The Marine said something else, but I couldn't understand him because suddenly... _CRACK!_ A bullet hole opened in his body and he fell to the ground, the floor covering with blood. Standing behind him and holding a pistol was a man who was so thin, he looked like death itself. It reminded me of the time on the streets when _I _had nearly starved to death.

"Looks like things are about to get very interesting," I muttered.

**TO BE CONTINUED**

* * *

**And chapter 3 is complete! Wow, three chapters in one day... I'm really on a roll! And not to mention I'm working on the original arc, Swap Island Insanity, during school. I'm on a creativity high today! Seriously, two chapters in one day has to be some kind of world record for me or something.  
**

Damon: Probably didn't help that you ate like twenty lollipops...

Yeah, yeah, whatever.

Lucy: Did someone mention food?

Nami: We're about to eat anyway, so can it, waiter girl.

Lucy: Well, I'm not gonna eat! I have to work!

Damon: You've got a point there... for once.

Lucy: Oi.

**-TheRealEvanSG**


	4. No 4: The Unexpected Customer!

**The fourth chapter of OP Full Blast: East Blue Bash has arrived!**

Damon: Oh, really? I thought it was the last chapter of _Lord of the Rings_.

...That was a totally random book to choose.

Damon: No, it's not. Tolkien is an awesome author. Unlike you.

Oi...

**Chapter start!**

* * *

The Unexpected Customer!

What the Hell are You Wearing, Lucy?!

* * *

**Previously...**

_The Marine said something else, but I couldn't understand him because suddenly... CRACK! A bullet hole opened in his body and he fell to the ground, the floor covering with blood. Standing behind him and holding a pistol was a man who was so thin, he looked like death itself. It reminded me of the time on the streets when I had nearly starved to death._

_"Looks like things are about to get very interesting," I muttered._

A waiter dressed in a simple chef's outfit came over to us and escorted us to a table by the spiral staircase. "Gomen," he said. "We don't mean to cause trouble for you."

"It's fine," I shrugged. "I've been in the middle of craziness worse than this before. In my opinion, this is just a good show."

"That guy is from Don Kreig's ship," I heard a cook say.

"A pirate, huh?" Lucy grinned.

The man with the pistol stumbled over to an empty table. He wore a white jacket with a red dragon embroidered on either side and a forest green shirt underneath that. His pants matched his jacket. A headband outlined his crown, and he was so thin you probably could've seen his bones if he'd take off his shirt.

I shook with anger. Having almost starved to death myself out on the streets of New York City last summer, I knew exactly what the man was feeling. I gritted my teeth, my face probably red with my rage. I wanted to kick that bastard Marine's ass for making that pirate go through all that. I mean sure he's a pirate, most of whom kill innocent people for the hell of it, but in my opinion, _no one_ deserved starvation. It was just too cruel. You simply don't know what it's like to go for long without food until you've experienced it yourself.

"Another customer has arrived." Patty said, raising an eyebrow.

"He'd better not cause any trouble in my restaurant," said Zeff dangerously.

The pirate put a foot up on his table and hissed, "I don't care what dish you bring, just get me some food." He was bleeding out of a cut above his eye. "This _is_ a restaurant, isn't it?"

"No, it's a spa," I said quietly but sarcastically, earning me a hit from Nami.

"Welcome, you damn crook!" greeted Patty with a stupid smile that made his already not-too-good-looking face look uglier.

"I'll only say it once more, so listen up. Bring me some food."

Lieutenant Fullbody decided to speak up. "He's gonna kill that cook..."

"I'm sorry, Sir, but we'll be expecting you to pay for your meal here," Patty told him. "Do you have any money?"

The starving man cocked the hammer of a pistol and pointed it at Patty's forehead, murmuring, "Is a bullet enough?"

"So I take it that you don't have any money."

_CRASH!_ Patty slammed his fists down and smashed the chair that the pirate had been sitting in just moments before, having just jumped out of the way in the nick of time. And _he _was reprimanding _Sanji_ for beating up customers...

Head Chef Zeff was not impressed. "Why, that Patty bastard broke one of my chairs!"

"Wow, what power!" said Lucy, eyes wide.

Sanji smoked his cigar distastefully.

"If you can't pay up, you can't eat!" Patty sneered at the pirate, who was laying on the ground and clutching his stomach, a pained look on his face. Customers and cooks alike cheered him on, while I growled in anger. "Oh, your stomach's growling there, you filthy pirate!"

"That was a fart." said the pirate.

I busted out laughing, attracting weird looks at our table from the rest of the crowd. Hey, the dude was funny!

"You jerk, just hurry and get me something to eat," he continued.

"YOU'RE NO CUSTOMER, SO GET THE HELL OUTTA HERE!"

Sanji walked off to the kitchen, and I smiled. I'd never liked Sanji too much because he was a perverted bastard who only cared about women, women, and women, but maybe he wasn't so bad in real life. Who knew?

Patty started beating up the starved man, and finally I'd had enough.

"Oi! Jerk-Chef!" I called. Everyone in the vicinity looked at me, wondering what I could possibly be angry about. I continued. "That man is starving. Don't you have any humanity at all? Even if he is a pirate, so what? I'd say a good half, or at least a thrid of this world's population are pirates. JUST BECAUSE THEY ARE, DOESN'T MEAN YOU CAN TREAT 'EM LIKE DIRT!"

Fullbody, who'd been crawling away, looked at me, and a glimmer of recognition sparked in his eye. Maybe he remembered me from the cannonball incident? Anyway, when he recognized me, he immediately crawled away even faster. I mentally smirked.

"What are you going on about?" Patty growled at me.

"No one, whether they be citizen, pirate, or Marine, deserves to starve." I said, narrowing my eyes and standing up from the table, while avoiding looking at Nami, who was trying to get me to shut up with a panicked look. "Starvation is a horror that nobody, no matter what their crime may be, should suffer."

Zeff raised an eyebrow. I could tell he probably had inferred by now that I knew this from experience.

"I don't understand," said the chef, crossing his arms and still rubbing his foot in the pirate's face.

"Then I'll make you," I hissed, and I walked over to him, everybody watching me.

"Oi, Damon-san, stop!" I heard Usopp cry.

POW! With one clean punch, I sent the big guy flying into the wall, where he slammed to a halt and slid down, his nose trickling blood. Patty's eyes had rolled back in his head. He was clearly unconscious.

The Baratie was so silent you could here a pin drop.

Then Lucy fell over laughing. I cracked a smirk. I turned to the customers, still stunned silent, and smiled, my angry expression now gone. "Alright everyone, please return to your meal!"

I picked up the pirate and carried him over my shoulder outside. Damn, was he heavy... I set him down gently on the deck and sat next to him, leaving the Straw Hats to wonder what the hell I was doing. The sound of the waves rolling in the background calmed me. The pirate rolled over into a kneeling position and hissed, "Damn that chef..." Then he looked at me, confusion in his eyes. "Why did you save me?"

I opened my mouth to answer, but didn't get a chance to because Lucy appeared on the floor above us and said, "Ne, you're starving, aren't you?"

"Sh-Shut up. I'm n-not the least bit hungry..."

"You sure look and sound like it to me," I said.

His stomach growled, proving my point.

The door opened again to reveal Sanji with a plate of food that looked very... Japanese, including rice and seafood, as well as a glass of water to wash it down with. He set it down in front of the weak man and sat next to me on the railing, smoking another cigar.

"Eat it."

The pirate looked at the plate of food, eyes wide with desire. He gulped hungrily, but said, "Shut up! Go away! This is even worse. I won't accept charity." He looked to the side. "Take it away!"

"It's not charity," I said, shaking my head.

"Yeah. Don't be so tough, just it eat already." Sanji agreed. "To me, any hungry person's a customer."

"I... I can't pay for it."

-GRUMBLE GRUMBLE GROWL-

"The vast ocean can be very creul," Sanji began. "It's awful not to have any food or water. Just awful... I understand starving people more than just about anyone. I don't care if you wanna die with pride." He gave the pirate a small smile. "But if you eat up now, you'd be able to look forward to a new tomorrow as well as pride truly worth having, won't you?"

My smile grew wider. Sanji was pretty cool, actually.

The starved man's eyes went wide with awe, and then as if a switch had been flipped, grabbed the plate of food and started stuffing his face with it, literally crying in joy. "Delicious! It's so delicious! I thought I was gonna die! I thought I was a goner." He shoveled the rice-seafood dish into his mouth.

"When you haven't had a thing to eat in weeks, or even days, your next meal tastes like happiness on a plate, doesn't it?" I said. "Me and Sanji here, we know what it's like to starve."

The chef looked at me in surprise. "How'd you..."

"I'm a psychic," I cut him off.

"Eh?!"

"Yummy, so delicious!" the pirate cried happily. "I've never had such a good meal in my whole life."

"Well, Sanji _is_ the best cook on the seas," I shrugged. Sanji again looked startled, though this time it was probably because he thought Zeff was the best cook. Then he looked back at our friend and grinned.

"You like it, eh?"

Above us, Lucy giggled. "Well, now I've found my cook!" And thus the Will of D enters into play. "Hey, aren't you lucky? If he hadn't given you something to eat, shishishi, it'd be all over for you by now! Ne, Mr. Cook, care to join us? You'll be the cook on our pirate ship!"

I raised an eyebrow and looked up at her. "...Why, exactly, are you laughing?"

Sanji's eyes turned to hearts the moment he spotted Lucy... and all the respect I'd just built up for Sanji flew out the window.

"AH, MELLORINE!" He said, kneeling with one hand on his knee. "If I could go anywhere I wanted with you, I would, but alas I cannot! I'm afraid I can't leave this restaurant, this cursed Baratie that is the wall between our love!"

A tic mark pulsed on the back of my head and I stood up and glared at the cook. "OI! DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT, YOU ERO-COOK!"

* * *

COMMERCIAL BREAK OF... COMMERCIALNESS!

Robin: That isn't a word, Author-san.

Ah, but it is! I made it up in the awesome Dictionary of Me! And where the hell did you come from?! You don't show up until Whiskey Peak!

Lucy: Whoa, a time traveller! SUGOOOOI!

* * *

"So, you two're kaizokou?" the pirate said. Lucy had jumped down to the deck and sat on the other side of the railing beside me.

"Hai!" she said happily.

"Then why'd you attack the resaurant?" Sanji wondered in confusion, now out of ero-cook mode since I hit him upside the head for it.

"Ah, that was accident!"

"My captain was defending the ship and her hand slipped, causing her to fling the Marine's ball at the Baratie instead of back at them," I explained to them, although it looked like they weren't quite following.

"The hell does that mean?" Sanji grumbled. "Anyways, you'd better not do anything else to this place. the head chef here was once a chef on a notorious pirate ship."

"Seeing as how Lucy-chan's Chore Girl? You'd better get used to mass chaos," I told him.

"Ne? So that old man was a kaizokou?" said Lucy, completely ignoring me and looking off into the horizon, as though imagining Zeff kicking the Grand Line's ass. I have to admit, it was a funny vision, imagining that.

"For that jiichan, this restaurant is worth more than any treasure to me, and I'd even give up sailing with a lady as beautiful as yourself," the ero-cook said to Lucy. Another tic mark pulsed on the back of my head.

"Oi, lay off it," I warned.

"And those cooks who came after his fame were once fierce kaizokou. Well, the kaizokou in these parts often come to this place."

"Yeah, this place never seems to lack a dull moment!" the straw-hatted captain laughed happily.

"It's a pretty fun place," I agreed, "if you ignore the jerkish personalities of some of the other chefs."

"Pheh. It's not that bad. I'm used to it." muttered Sanji. "Recently, most of the people only come to watch the cooks and kaizokou brawl it out. But thanks to that, it scares away all of the part-time waiters."

"Oh, that explains it." Lucy grinned, obviously happy that her small bran managed to figure something out. "No wonder he wants me to work here for a whole year."

I choked. I'd known it already from watching the anime, but hearing it in real life was something else. "A... A whole _year_?" I said, my jaw dropping. "That's overkill..."

"Ne, join us!" Lucy asked Sanji.

Sanji frowned. "As much as I'd love to, I already told you, I can't. I refuse. I have my reasons why I must remain here."

I snorted. "You think that because the jiisan saved your life, that means you have to stay here helping him out and you can't follow your dreams, huh? What a stupid reason. He saved you so you_ could _follow your dreams, you know."

The chef was so surprised he dropped his cigarette. "Whu... How'd you...?"

"Told you, I'm a psychic," I said.

Lucy stretched her neck and looked at him face-to-face, though upside down. "NO! I refuse!"

Sanji blinked and blushed because their faces were so close. "...Eh? Refuse what?"

"I refuse your refusal! You're a good cook, so come be a kaizokou with me!"

I shook my head and facepalmed. Lucy logic.

Sanji turned and glared at her. Whoa... Sanji glaring at a girl! _That's _one for the history books. "Hey now, you listen to me!"

"So what's this reason of yours?"

"I already said it, Lucy-chan," I sighed. "You were ignoring me as usual."

"I don't need to tell you."

Lucy pouted in confusion. "Eh? Didn't you say you wanted me to listen to you?" I have to admit, the two things he'd said didn't coincide very wel together...

A small tic mark pulsed on Sanji's forehead. "I meant that you must accept my decision!"

"EH? WHAT'D YOU SAY!?" My captain fumed.

"Yara yara," I sighed.

"Sorry to interrupt, but..." the pirate Sanji had saved interrupted.

**"NANDA?!"**

"I'm part of the Krieg Kaizokou. The name's Ghin. So, you're kaizokou too, eh?" Said the pirate, Ghin. "What's your goal."

Lucy smiled. "I'm looking for One Piece! I'm gonna be Queen of the Pirates! I'm headed for the Grand Line."

Ghin stared. "You're still looking for a cook... Your crew must be quite small."

"Yeah. We've got six, counting him."

**"WHY THE HELL ARE YOU COUNTING ME IN?" **Sanji and I shouted in unsion.

"You look like a decent people, so let me give you a piece of advice," the previously-starving man said. "You'd better not go to the Grand Line. You're still young. There's no need to rush. The Grand Line is only a small part of the world's vast oceans. If you wanna be a pirate, there are many less intimidating places."

"A, so desu ka," Lucy grinned. So do you know anything about the Grand Line, Ghin?"

I smirked. "As if intimidation would stop Lucy."

Ghin shook his head and rubbed his face. "No. I don't know anything about it... Nothing, nothing at all! That's why it's so scary!"

Sanji looked at him dubiously. "Are you really one of the dreaded Krieg's men? I didn't think he'd take such chickens."

"Yup." I said.

"Krieg?" asked Lucy in confusion.

I got up from the railing, leaving Lucy, Sanji, and Ghin to their conversation. "Well, I'm hungry. I'm getting something to eat."

They all ignored me.

Whatever.

When I got back with the other Straw Hats, Nami glared at me and bopped me on the head a couple of times, glaring at me and looking more like a shark than a human. She chewed me out for attacking the chef while Usopp sank lower in his seat, hoping the navigator wouldn't suddenly decide to turn her anger on him for some reason.

After Nami's anger faded, she looked at me sadly. "From what you said it sounded like you were speaking from experience."

"I was," I said grimly, nursing the new bumps on my head. "A few weeks after the start of my life on the streets, I ran out of money and began starving. It's... truly the worst experience ever. I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy."

Things were pretty melancholic after that until a chef/waiter came and took our orders.

"You've got stuffed peppers with sea king meat?" I said, raising an eyebrow while looking at the menu. "Huh. Guess I'll take that, then." Two years ago, stuffed peppers had been my favorite meal, and I was interested to see what sea king meat tasted like, so while I was in this world, I might as well go with the flow.

A short while after our food came, and let me just say that sea king meat is 100 times better than any other meat I've ever had, Nami spotted Lucy on the spiral staircase above us.

"Hey, waiter girl!" she chortled.

Lucy stopped walking, blinked, and glared at us. "Oi! It's you guys!"

I had been taking a swig of lemonade, easily the best drink in the world, and spat out the drink in my mouth all over Zoro, who had the misfortune of being sat directly opposite me. He glared at me and said something, but I was so shocked I didn't hear what he said. Because Lucy... Lucy...

Oh, gods, Lucy, why?!

She had on a French maid uniform that had a button down, revealing some of her cleavage. It was... really hot. And I don't mean the weather. I felt my face heat up a little and unless it was my imagination, Zoro's did too.

"I heard you had to work for a whole year!" Nami continued. "But, man is that dress kawaii!"

"Can I redraw our pirate flag?" Zoro smirked.

I shook myself out of my perverted stupor, leaned back in my chair, and took another swig of my lemonade. "I wonder how many people you'll have to serve, ne?" And I don't mean _that _kind of service, people! Minds out of the gutter, honestly!

"W-w-w-what's this?!" our captain gasped in disbelief. "You all stuff yourselves with such great food while I'm not around?! THAT HURTS!"

"Not really, it's our free will," Zoro chuckled.

She stuck a finger up her nose, dug out a booger, and flicked it into his water. "Take that."

I only barely held back my laughter, as did Usopp and Nami. I think I cracked a couple ribs...

"But I've gotta admit, the food here's great," the swordsman smirked, reaching for his glass and slowly bringing it to his lips. My lungs were threatening to burst with the effort of not laughing. "I feel kinda sorry for ya..." Suddenly he grabbed Lucy by the neck and forced her to drink the water, a tic mark pulsing on the back of his head. "YOU DRINK IT!"

This was simply too much for the three of us. Laughter exploded from us, and Nami was laughing so hard she was even slapping the table. I was literally crying with mirth. Lucy rolled around on the floor.

"YOU, TOO! WHAT WERE YOU TRYING TO PULL?" Zoro roared.

"My stomach's aching!" Lucy exclaimed.

A few of the other customers near us stared at our table, some of them giving us weird looks and others smiling with us.

"Oh, mother ocean!" a familiar voice said. I immediately stopped laughing and a tic mark pulsed on the back of my head, even bigger than Zoro's. "Thank you for arranging this encounter today!" It was Sanji, kneeling down next to Nami, who stopped laughing and leaned away with a startled 'Eh?!,' and producing a rose from who-knows-where. "Oh, my love!" He put his hand into his face and shook it as though in resignation. "Go on, laugh at me. I, who can't bear torture. As long as I'm with you and your beautiful captain, it matters not if I'm kaizokou or a devil... MY HEART'S READY AS CAN BE!" He looked up with a perverted grin, his eyes, or rather _eye_ since his left one was hidden behind his hair, now heart-shaped.

I burst out laughing again. Well, he _did_ say we could laugh at him... Lucy looked like she didn't know what to think, and Zoro standing next to her had his eyes shadowed by his hair.

"But this is horrible! There's such a great obstacle between us!"

"The obstacle is me, right?" growled Zeff, who stepped up to us, his peg leg tapping against the floor. "Sanji."

The chef's eye immediately went back to normal. "The damn jiisan," he grumbled.

"This is just great," said Zeff. Man was his chef's hat long... "Why don't you just run off and be a kaizokou just like them? We don't need you here anymore!"

Sanji glared at him.

Ouch. That was rough.

**TO BE CONTINUED.**

* * *

**And thus ends the fourth chapter of the rising star of fanfictions, OP: Full Blast! Yosha! Let's do this, minnas!**

Damon: What a terrible ending. There should at least be a punch line or something...

*Punches Damon*

Zoro: That works.

Johnny and Yosaku: Don't forget to review, follow, and favorite! If you want...

Coby: *cries* WAAAH! I'm not in the story yet!

Damon: GAH! PINK HAIR!

**-TheRealEvanSG**


	5. No 5: The Greatest Crew Ever!

**Another chapter of the epic saga of the life of my OC, Damon D. Digger! There is finally gonna be a description of him in this chapter! PAAAARRTTYYYY!**

Damon: Sheesh. What kind of shit-author doesn't include a description of the main character until the freakin' FIFTH CHAPTER?!

Heheheheh... Ah... Yeah... About that little issue...

**CHAPTER START!**

Damon: *voice fades into the background* Oi! You still haven't answered my ques-

* * *

The Greatest Pirate Fleet Ever?!

Screw Reputation! Whitebeard's Stronger than Don Krieg!

* * *

**Previously on OP: Full Blast - East Blue Bash.**

_"This is just great," said Zeff. Man was his chef's hat long... "Why don't you just run off and be a kaizokou just like them? We don't need you here anymore!"_

_Sanji glared at him._

_Ouch. That was rough._

"The other cooks don't like you anyway," the head chef continued. "Why don't you just become a kaizokou or whatever you please? Why don't you just get the hell outta here!?"

Lucy blinked. Zoro raised an eyebrow. I sighed and went back to meal, drowning out the rest of my conversation. I didn't like listening in when friends were insulting each other until Sanji was thrown into the table, before which I only just managed to get my food out of the way of being smashed, along with everyone else. In my opinion, as long as my name didn't come up in their argument, it's their problem, not mine, and I won't fight unnecessary battles.

Still though, my stuffed peppers didn't taste quite as good as they had before.

Zeff walked off saying, "I'll live another 100 years!" and Lucy, that moron, chose this moment to get a few words in of her own.

"Isn't it great that he gave you his blessing!" she exclaimed, leaning over to pat him on the back. Sanji looked like he couldn't decide whether to go into ero-cook mode or to kick her in the face, which I wouldn't blame him for doing.

"Lucy!" I snapped. "Is that really all you can gleam from that argument?"

She totally ignored me, but then again, was I really expecting anything else? "Now you can come with us -"

"HELL NO!"

I heard one of the cooks mutter, "Whoa. Sanji said 'no' to and cursed at a girl? This has to be a world record or something."

I nodded in silent agreement.

Then Sanji immediately went into ero-cook mode after fixing our table, and gave Nami a Fruit Macedonia and a new glass of wine. Although my eye twitched ("Spaz," I heard Zoro mutter, earning him a sharp look), I didn't do much than glare lightly at him. For some reason, Sanji kissing up to Nami didn't affect me as much as him kissing up to Lucy. I didn't even get a tic mark.

Nami thanked him and a greedy sneer spread across her face while Usopp sprung up demanding Sanji apologize to us. I rolled my eyes.

"You want a fight?" Usopp grunted. "I won't go easy on you. Get him, Zoro, Damon!"

I sweatdropped. "If you want to fight, do it yourself," I told him. The swordsman agreed.

Nami pouted. "Please don't fight over me."

"Very well, madam, I'll stop."

"WHO'D WANT TO FIGHT OVER YOU?!"

I pointed at Sanji, my face blank. Zoro snickered.

Nami started playing with the ero-cook's easily-swayed heart to get free food while I just shook my head and tried to concentrate on my food. Lucy watched the whole thing, stomach growling the entire time.

"Give me food, Damon!" she begged, looking at me and turning on puppy dog eyes.

Damn... those were some _cute_ puppy dog eyes. I felt my resistance weaken and I sighed. "Alright. You can have _one_ of the remaining peppers on my plate."

"YAY!" she cheered, scooping up the biggest stuffed pepper and downing it in one giant gulp. "More!"

"N-N-No," I grunted, somehow managing to tear my eyes away from hers.

"Come on!"

"I said only one."

"Oi, waiter girl! Why are you slacking off? Back to work!" a random cook said.

"Oh. Okay..." She looked so disappointed I almost gave her another pepper, but I managed to stop myself before I broke. And so our captain was dragged off while Nami, Usopp, Zoro and I all sweatdropped. Sanji left our table soon after.

* * *

Three days passed, three days to get closer to each of the Straw Hats. Zoro and I got in more mini battles, Nami breaking them up before they escalated. I practiced my self-defence and tried to discover what my powers where. I mean, if I was a demigod, I had to have control over some type of aspect of human life, right? And since Aeso had said he was the god of the ocean, it only made sense that my powers were water-related. I had pretty much accepted this was real by now. I'd never had a dream so realistic in my life.

On the second day we were at the Baratie, I managed to cause a wave the size of the restaurant that rolled, out of control, out to sea. Luckily it went in the direction of the Calm Belt, so I wasn't too worried about it crashing into islands and causing a mass panic. By the fourth day, I was able to control the waves I created, though it took a _lot_ of effort and left me physically exhausted by the time I was done. The crew asked me if I'd eaten some sort of Devil Fruit, and to keep things simple until I learned more about why I was here, I said I ate the Mizu-Mizu no Mi, otherwise known as the Water-Water Fruit.

When I wasn't practicing self-defense or learning how to control my powers, I was fooling around on my iPod or just trying to get some rest before the big battle I knew was coming. My reflection on my iPod showed me the same Damon that I'd been before I'd entered this world; a slightly nervous Damon with maybe a little more muscle than I'd had before, but the same me nonetheless. I had on a purplish/black PacMan shirt under a cool leather jacket which Cracked-Up Kane had stolen for me against my wishes. I'd almost returned it to the store, but it was so awesome on me that I'd decided I'd keep it, just this once. I also had on a dark blue pair of jeans, the same ones I'd been wearing on my mother's death day. I hadn't grown more than an inch since then (I'd hit puberty pretty early) but I was still really tall, a good 6'4". My hair was brown and windswept from the sea breeze. My eyes were a handsome hazel. My single black belt was caked in seasalt from the waves I'd practiced making, and smelled bad like the ocean, though I was getting used to the smell by now.

At the one week mark, a heavy fog rolled in. I had been watching the Baratie Arc as well as the other future East Blue Arcs secretely up in the crow's nest so that the crew wouldn't hear me doing it, and so I knew that today was the day that Don Krieg would show up trying to take the restaurant, whose food we'd been gorging ourselves on for the past week.

"Man, it's already been seven days," Usopp complained. "I'm getting fed up with this place. How soon can we leave, do you think?"

"Technically you're not getting fed up with the restaurant, you're getting fed up with the restaurant's _food_," I told him seriously.

"Smart ass."

"Beats me." Zoro shrugged, totally ignoring me. Did anyone pay attention to me? At all?

"You don't think he'll really be stuck here for a whole year, do you?" the liar grumbled.

"Knowing Lucy, she's probably wrecking the place, and they'll let her out early to save themselves the extra repair cost," I chuckled. We were all leaning against the side of the _Merry_'s upper deck railing, the fog so thick it looked like pea soup.

"Too true," said Nami with a sigh. "I'll miss all this free food."

"IT'S ONLY FREE FOR YOU!" Usopp shrieked. He tilted his head and must've seen our captain off the side of the ship, because he called out, "Oi, Lucy! What's up with you? Hurry and get out of this mess!"

"Ah, can't you guys wait just a bit longer? I'll try talking to the boss again," replied Lucy.

"Please do!"

There was a slight pause broken only by the lapping of the waves against the side of the _Going Merry_. Then the shadow of a huge ship sailed steadily toward us like a ghost. My shackles stood up on end and I shivered. The anime hadn't done the creepiness of the situation justice.

As the ship grew closer, we all watched it. And man... up close it was even _bigger_. It had to be at least six times the size of our own little caravel. It's mast head was akin to a sea monster, or maybe a weird purple lion, and it's pirate mark was... strange. But the creepy thing wasn't the sheer size of the ship, or it's figurehead, or even the grinning Jolly Roger flying on the mainmast. No, the creepy thing was how utterly _decimated_ it looked.

"It looks like it was put through a giant meat grinder," I said in horrified awe. "How is it even still sailing?"

"Hey, we gotta get outta here!" Usopp freaked.

"That ship's _huge_!" Nami said in shock. Thanks for that, Captain Obvious.

The fog cleared away, revealing just how messed up the ship really was. The sails were torn nearly in half, and one of the masts was leaning to the side. Giant, gaping holes were ripped in the hull of the ship.

"We can't go without Lucy," I told Usopp, "and I doubt she'd want to miss the excitement anyway."

A huge man shrowded in his ship's shadow stepped off it and walked into the Baratie, leaning against a struggling Ghin.

"Oi, minnas, let's go in the back way," Zoro suggested.

"Yeah, sounds good to me, Marimo." I nodded. The tenseness in the air was so great that the unofficial first mate of the Straw Hats didn't even shoot me a glare.

"I think I have, If-I-go-to-the-restaurant-I'll-die disease!" Usopp cried. "It's a serious dilemma!"

"Fine, stay here, but don't blame me if Krieg's men raid our ship," I shrugged. The liar squeaked in terror and ran over to hide behind me. "Oi..."

"I'll protect the ship," Nami offered. "I'm good with a bo staff."

I bent my head in resignation, knowing she'd sail off without us. "Alright, but I need to get something out of the crow's nest first." I quickly scaled the steep mast, almost slipping but managing to regain my balance, and slipped my iPod into my pocket, then jumped out of the lookout post and into the sea, willing myself to stay dry so my iPod wouldn't get fried. I'd learned I could do this the day before.

_SPLOSH_ I sank into the water, hung for a second, then blasted myself onto the Baratie.

We all came in just in time to see Sanji getting punched out by none other than Don Krieg himself, wearing a plum cape with a big fur collar. His head was bandaged, his hair was lavender, and his eyes were hard and confident. His shoulders were broad and his whole body was heavily muscled.

"S-Sanji!" a cook I'd learned a couple days ago was named Carne (Italian for "meat" - coincidences, eh?) gasped. A woman screamed in terror and thr crowd of customers that had been watching backed away quickly.

Ghin was kneeling on the floor next to Krieg, and pleaded, "Oi! Aren't you acting different from what you promised, Don Krieg? You promised that you'd never hurt these people, so I took you here. Besides, that was the man who saved our lives!"

His captain suddenly grabbed by the shoulder and fored him to his feet. "Yeah, it was good," Krieg said. He squeezed on Ghin's shoulder harder and I heard it snap. Ghin howled in pain. "I feel re-energized." He dropped Ghin on the ground and left him clutching his broken shoulder, while I gritted my teeth, wondering how any man with even a sliver of pride in him could torture one of his friends - no, his _nakama_ like that.

Krieg sneered and examined the joint. "Oi, isn't this a nice restaurant?" he said. "I'll take it."

Sanji struggled to sit up.

"My ship's ruined. I'm taking this one in exchange. Leave after you've all gotten your things, last warning."

"N-Nani?!" Carne growled.

"He's scary," Usopp cried quietly, still hiding behind me.

"D-Don..." Ghin grunted. "That's not what you promised."

Krieg pointed his thumb behind him. "There's about a 100 men still alive on that ship. All of 'em are starving and injured. First, prepare food and water for them all. Some of them... have already starved to death. Do it right away!"

"We know that those pirates are gonna turn right back around and attack us!" Carned said. "We won't aid them!"

_What a bastard_, I thought angrily. _Even though that's exactly what Krieg's men will end up doing, they still don't deserve to starve!_

"You refuse?" Krieg growled "Don't misunderstand. I'm not ordering food. I'm giving you an order. Nobody ever disobeys me!"

"There's a first time for everything," I muttered.

The so-called King of the East Blue blew steam out of his mouth and the chefs backed up a few steps in fear.

Ghin rasped something, but it was so quiet I couldn't hear him. Sanji tilted his head to the side.

"BASTARD!" Patty yelled at the ero-cook. "LOOK WHAT YOU'VE DONE!"

"You're the one who beat up Ghin," I said to myself.

Sanji somehow managed to stand up, even though the blow he'd taken looked like it was super-powerful. He put his hands in his pockets and went to the spiral staircase, which was filled with other chefs. "Oi, Sanji, where do you think you're going?" One of them asked.

He paused, then wiped a trickle of blood from the corner of his mouth. "The kitchen," came his simple answer. "I've gotta prepare enough food for 100 men."

I smiled. Once again, Sanji's kindness was awesome. My respect for him went up a few notches. The cooks, on the other hand, lookde like they couldn't believer their ears, and Ghin was even more shocked.

"Sanji-san!" the injured pirate hissed in awe.

"Sanji!" grinned Lucy.

"NANI?!" The chefs shouted collectively.

"Hai." The leader of the famed pirate fleet smirked. "That's how it should be."

Suddenly, Mr. Ero-Cook was surrounded by a multitude of sharp objects and pans on long handles. I blinked. Where had the cooks pulled those weapons from? I hadn't even seen them move. Huh. Weird.

The chefs called him Krieg's little puppet and said they'd never let him in the kitchen again, as well as a lot of other insulting things. I tried not to growl in anger.

Sanji held out his hands. "Go ahead. If you wanna stop me, do so."

The cooks looked at each other in confusion.

"I'm aware. I know that he's a helpless bully... but that's none of my business. I don't care. I don't care what happens after they had their meal." Sanji looked down contentedly. "Not a care in the world. I'm a chef. Nothing more. When people are hungry, I offer them food. That's all there is to it." He looked back up and eyed his fellow cooks. "For a chef, isn't that enough?"

The chefs stepped away, but then -

_WHAM!_ Sanji was once again punched out, only this time by Patty, who said, "Oi! Take him outta here!"

I stepped forward angirly, but Zoro held me back. "Let them duke it out," he sighed.

I glared, but did as he said.

"Sanji, you've often given food to those that I've thrown out, haven't you?" Patty grumbled. "I don't care who's right or wrong at the moment, but I can't let you do as you please anymore. _I'll _protect this restaurant." With those words, he strolled over to the large column that the staircase spiraled around, pulled on a piece of board I hadn't noticed before, and dug around in a cubby hole. "Luckily there's only one man today. What can a lone Don Krieg do against us? Pirates come to this restaurant all the time... I'm always prepared for anything."

"That's -" Sanji gasped.

Patty turned his head, smirked, and said the stupidest joke ever. "Did you enjoy your meal, Krieg-san? 'CAUSE HERE'S YOUR DESSERT!"

And he pulled out... a giant, red, crayfish-shaped bazooka.

I stared. Well... that was anti-climactic.

"SYRUP MEATBALL!" Patty shouted, cocking the bazooka. BOOM! It exploded, releasing a giant flash of light that nearly blinded me, but when my vision cleared, all I could see was an enormous dust cloud. I heard Lucy shout in surprise on the steps.

"Don!" Ghin shouted in the dust cloud.

"Heh... Zeff'll be mad at me for blasting the door off," Patty admitted, "but it'll be worth it. We're protecting this place, after all."

"What about the men on Krieg's ship?" Sanji grunted.

"How about we butter it up and cook it?" Again with the lame chef jokes...

It took a good five minutes for it to clear, but when it did... Krieg was still standing. And he looked unhurt. "That sounds delicious," he sneered. "Stupid cook."

The cooks shook in fear and shock.

"Giving me such an awful dessert... this restaurant's despicable!" There was the sound of the cocking of many guns, and when the last of the dast cleared, Krieg was shown wearing shiny gold-plated armor, which - take a guess - held an almost impossible number of high-powered, long-ranged weapons. "DESPICABLE!"

For some reason, a quick snapshot of Gru surrounded by his Minions flashed through my mind. Maybe I was ADHD? I'd have to check that out with Chopper when we reach Drum Kingdom, if I was still with the Straw Hats at that point.

For now, though, my jaw dropped at the sheer number of loaded guns being pointed _STRAIGHT. AT. US!_

"Dammit, not good!" I shouted.

_CRACK CRACK CRACK POW CRACK POW POW!_ The guns all unloaded at once and we pirates dived behind a table the fleeing customers had upturned, while the chefs hit the floor.

"That armor..." Lucy shouted in awe.

"It can shoot?!" Sanji gasped.

Krieg closed the plates of his armor, stopping the guns fom firing. He shrugged off his forest-green gloves to reveal a diamond-fisted hand. "Do as i say!" he commanded us. "I'm the strongest person alive!"

"Heh, you just haven't met Lucy yet," I said to myself.

* * *

**Chapter 5 end! I'm ending it a bit early 'cuz my parents are crabbing about my curfew.**

Damon: Whoa, talk about big guns.

Usopp: *crying anime tears* THAT WAS SO SCARY~!

Damon: Can you please stop hiding behind me, bro?

Lucy: Oi! Minnas! Review, favorite, and follow, please! AND GIVE ME FOOD ALREADY!

Straw Hats: *all sweatdrop* Oi, Captain, that wasn't part of the script...

**-TheRealEvanSG**


	6. No 6: Prelude to an Epic Battle!

**I am so sorry for the long wait, but I've been at work on some original stories on my sister account for fictionpress, so I didn't have much time for _Full Blast_. Now, however, since it's Thanksgiving Break I've got a bunch of extra time on my hands, so I present to you the next and much-anticipated chapter of _OP: Full Blast_.  
**

Damon: Finally, I'll get some action soon. Do you know how boring it's been sitting there at the Baratie waiting for something to actually happen? Shit-author!

Blame Eiichiro Oda for making them wait so long... although I did add a couple days to the waiting time.

Damon: Like I said, shit-author.

**Chapter 6 start!**

* * *

Protect Damon?!  


Prelude to an Epic Battle!

* * *

**Previously on ****One Piece: Full Blast**

_CRACK CRACK CRACK POW CRACK POW POW! The guns all unloaded at once and we pirates dived behind a table the fleeing customers had upturned, while the chefs hit the floor._

_"That armor..." Lucy shouted in awe._

_"It can shoot?!" Sanji gasped._

_Krieg closed the plates of his armor, stopping the guns from firing. He shrugged off his forest-green gloves to reveal a diamond-fisted hand. "Do as I say!" he commanded us. "I'm the strongest person alive!"_

_"Heh, you just haven't met Lucy yet," I said to myself._

"That guy's scary!" Usopp whimpered.

"Oh, shut up," I snapped quietly. My eye was twitching again, but this time it wasn't just out of annoyance.

"These arms are stronger than anybody's!" Krieg continued. "My super-alloy armor is tougher than anything! And I've got a diamond punch that can destroy anything! An army of 5000 men!" _Which was defeated easily by a single man_... "I've never lost a battle in my life!" _You just did a few days ago, buddy_... "I'm the perfect person to claim the title of 'Don!'" _Actually, that's the captain with the unnamed zanpaukto from Bleach, _I finished my thoughts. I got sarcastic when I was scared, and the power of this pirate captain was definitely freaking me out, even if I wasn't letting it show.

"Out of the way, girl." I saw Chef Zeff rolling a huge, lumpy canvas bag down the spiral staircase out of the corner of my eye, and he accidentally knocked Lucy over, sending her down to the bottom floor of the restaurant headfirst.

"Hey!" she complained indignantly. "Watch it! You could hurt someone with that, you know!"

Zeff ignored her and continued forward, plopping the bag down at the cunning captain's feet. "Here," he growled. "That's enough food and water for a hundred men. Take it to your ship."

"Owner Zeff!" the chefs gasped.

"You're... Redfoot Zeff!" Krieg gasped.

The tension in the Baratie was so thick you could practically cut it with a knife.

The ex-pirate turned and walked back. The chefs stared at him for a bit, then started shouting, "Oi! What do you think you're doing, Zeff-sama? If his crew's strength is returned, they'll beat us to the ground and take over this restaurant!"

"Only _if_ they've got the guts," Zeff corrected. "Isn't that right, Mr. Couldn't-Get-Through-The-Grand-Line?"

Usopp squeaked in terror at the mention of the Grand Line, earning him a hit over the head from me. What a wimp. Seriously, there's a fine line between comic relief and cowardliness and he crossed it a long time ago.

"N-No way..." Carne muttered. "Not even the fabled Don Krieg could get through? That sea must be like a monster..."

"Nah, but it's got hundreds of monsters in it," I spoke up. Usopp gulped.

"M-Monsters?!"

"Yup. It's got your common Sea Kings and such, and then it's got fish the size of islands. And I'm not exaggerating either. There's a quite famous whale the size of a mountain that should be one of the very first things we encounter, if the Butterfly Effect doesn't change things..."

Zoro blinked and scowled, evidence that he was confused. "What's the Butterfly Effect?"

I waved my hand dismissively. "Nothing important. Let's return to these guys' conversation, ne?"

He sweatdropped. "Sometimes you act more like a girl than a street kid."

Before I could get too depressed, I felt a sharp gaze on me, and I flinched. Sure enough, it was Don Krieg, and it looked like he had overheard our conversation. "Say..." he mused. "It sounds like you're well-read on the Grand Line. You're talking about it almost as if you've been there before..."

I swallowed and waved my hands around, laughing nervously. "Heh heh heh, no, that's not it. M-My parents were j-just pirates who had s-sailed the Grand L-Line before and they t-told me stories about it. Heh heh heh!" I mentally beat myself up. What an idiot I was! Now he was gonna be even more interested than before!

Lucy slid into my line of view, eyes sparkling. "Hontou?! Your parents were kaizokou?! Sugoi!"

I was sweating bullets. "Shut it!"

Krieg laughed a loud, raucous, and ugly laugh. "Hahahaha! This is perfect. Ghin, there's been a change of plans! We're still taking this ship, but I don't want Zeff's journal anymore!"

Everyone except me looked at him in confusion.

"I want that boy to be a part of my crew instead, whether he accepts or not!" He pointed to me curtly.

"NO WAY!" I freaked.

"NO WAY!" Lucy agreed. "He's my nakama! You can't have him! She ran in front of me protectively, her red jacket blowing behind her like a cape. It looked kinda cute, but I wasn't exactly processing that right now.

I blushed and shouted at her with shark teeth. "DON'T SAY THINGS THAT COULD BE TAKEN WRONGLY!"

She blinked. "Ne? Like what?"

Ignoring us, Krieg raised his hands dramatically. "With this ship and that young man's knowledge, I shall take over the Grand Line! Today is the dawn of a new era, and its name is 'Krieg!' I shall be the king of the kaizokou!"

There was a pregnant pause, and a strong wind blew through the Baratie. For a while, the only sound was that of the waves constantly lapping at the side of the ship. Then Lucy clenched her fists and, although I couldn't tell since she was in front of me, probably glared at him cutely. "Now wait just a minute," she spoke up. She raised her hand and pointed at Krieg. "I'm the one who's gonna be queen of the kaizokou, got it? And I ain't sharing that position with some smelly slime ball like you!"

Que more tension and an angry Krieg.

"What was that?!" he roared. "Listen up, bitch! I had enough men, enough power, and enough ambition! The only thing I was lacking was information! That's the only reason I failed." Ghin was on his knees with a hand on his forehead, looking like he was crying. Krieg shook his fist. "I must have that boy's knowledge! I don't care whose nakama he is! Once he is on my ship, and once I have gathered together another fleet to sail the Grand Line, the great treasure One Piece is as good as mine!"

"Didn't you hear anything I just said?" Lucy sighed, folding her hands in front of her chest. "I'm the one who'll be queen of the kaizokou!"

The chefs had enough. "Oi, waiter girl! That's enough! If you continue talking like this, you'll get killed! That guy's no match for you, ya know!"

Zoro smirked. "Lucy? Killed? Don't make me laugh. That brat's got the luck of the devil."

Lucy turned her head and nodded. I could see now that she was smirking, too, and it looked really cute on her. I blushed and hit myself mentally. "That's right!" she agreed. "I can't do a thing like backing down now. Krieg threatened my friend and my future position as kaizokou queen. If nobody stands up to him, Damon'll be as good as dead."

"Lucy..." I muttered.

Krieg frowned. "What was that, girl? If you shut up right now, I'll pretend I didn't hear that..."

"You don't have to," she cut in, hands on her hips. "I'm just saying things how they are."

"This is no game."

"Of course it isn't." I could feel the confidence in her voice. "I'll be the one who'll get to the Grand Line, and I'll protect my nakama!"

I blinked and smiled. Lucy... she was a very strong girl, and her confidence was already eating away at my fears of being stuck on Krieg's crew until I could learn how to control my powers better, and Lord knows how long that would take.

"THAT'S NOT FUNNY, BITCH!" Krieg snapped, bending forward and shaking his fist some more. "It may have just been a lack of information, but even a fleet of 5,000 men was defeated in just seven days! Only a week!" Ghin's body shook, and he was clenching his head. I frowned. "WHAT MAKES YOU THINK YOU CAN DO IT, EH?"

"Sev... Seven days?!" Patty gasped.

"Krieg's men only lasted seven days?" Carne repeated in shocked disbelief.

"What could have happened to them?"

"How could we possibly survive?" Usopp moaned. "We're screwed! Screwed, I tell you!"

"Shut it," I said, my eye twitching nervously.

"Sorry," Krieg told Lucy, ignoring everyone else, "but your kind of humor is what I hate the most. Should I just kill you off right now?"

Lucy took a leaf out of Zeff's book, raising her fist like she was getting ready to throw a punch. "If you think you're up to it," she said.

"Nani?" Krieg smirked, too. "Very well then. You want to be sent to the next world?" He drew his fists back, and my eyes widened, remembering from the anime what was about to happen.

"Everyone get down!" I bellowed, ducking behind another table myself. The golden plates on the armor-clad pirate captain whirred and spun, lifting upward to reveal a set of two guns each. The Baratie staff all backed up a step - - all except for Zeff and Lucy, that is, who simply glared at him and drew her own fist back. Zoro thumbed his sword open and Usopp placed his hands on his hips, faking bravery as always. I began concentrating on the air around me, focusing on the water vapor. I had a theory that if I could control water, then I could draw water from the air, since water vapor was really just water evaporated into a gas. It took a good bit of my energy, but I managed to create a ball of water that I gripped in my hand.

"Starting a brawl, Lucy-chan?" Zoro grinned. "Need a hand?"

"W-We don't have to, y-you know..." Usopp told him, knees shaking.

"I can protect myself, Luce," I said, though I seriously doubted I could do much at the moment against a man like Don Krieg.

"It's okay," Lucy said, turning and grinning at us. "You guys just sit and watch, ne?"

Zoro sheathed his katana again. I returned the water ball to the air, and Usopp slightly relaxed. "Well, if you don't need us, then there's nothing we can do about that, heh!" he announced, laughing nervously. "I-I'll help you if you still need it, though! G-Good luck!"

"Baka," I sighed, rolling my eyes and panting a little from the exertion of controlling water. Rick Riordan hadn't mentioned just how tired bending water to your will can be.

Zoro tic-pulsed at Usopp's crazed giggling and scored a TKO with his elbow.

"What the hell was that for, Zoro-kun?!" Usopp whined.

"Shut up," the swordsman told him.

Krieg was staring at us as though he couldn't really believe what he was seeing. I couldn't blame him. We looked like a bunch of idiots, and Usopp didn't exactly help the image any. The only one of us Straw Hats who looked even remotely like a pirate was Zoro. Then the enemy captain started laughing.

"Are those your men?" he asked Lucy, who turned to him and said simply - -

"Yup."

"I said not to include me with your crew, Luce..."

"Are they all you've got with you?"

"What are you talking about? I've got two more!" She pouted and stuck out two fingers for emphasis.

"Why do you keep counting me in, too?" Sanji asked.

Krieg snorted and the plates on his shoulders shut with a metallic clang. "I'll deal with you guys later," he decided. Lucy blinked. "Right now I've gotta feed my men, and a certain fellow I picked up on the way here."

I frowned. A certain fellow? I hadn't seen this part in the anime, but then again, Krieg changing his plans to kidnap me wasn't in the anime either. Could this be a result of the disturbance I must have created from entering this universe? I hoped not.

Krieg picked up his sack of food and slung it on his back like an evil, gold-loving twin of Santa Claus. "Any of you who wish to live, I suggest you leave immediately. All who are still here when I return are as good as dead. Remember, the only things I want are that boy and the ship." And with that, he turned sharply and went to exit the Baratie, but then he paused. "However, if you really want to, throw your lives away and stay. I'll be going out of my way, but I'd be happy to send all of you to the bottom of the ocean! Keep that in mind"

A chill ran down my spine. I really didn't want to imagine myself somewhere on the ocean floor, with fish eating me and all.

Krieg fully left the Baratie, leaving Ghin to his own devices.

Lucy placed a hand on her straw hat.

"I'm sorry, Sanji-san..." Ghin moaned in pain, clutching his shoulder, which was probably broken or at least sprained. "I never expected things to turn out like this! I'm sorry to you, too, Lucy-chan. I can tell your nakama mean a lot to you."

"I don't need an apology from the likes of you, baka!" Zeff barked. Ghin stared at him, not understanding. "We are but cooks in this establishment. We'll feed anybody who comes along."

"Owner Zeff!" Patty said, still gripping his weapon. "Why are you siding with Sanji?! What's going on here?!"

"Starvation is a terrible thing," I said, shaking my head. "And nobody deserves it, no matter how evil they may be."

A cook with long hair pointed at Sanji angrily. "This is all his fault! He's going to destroy your precious restaurant and get innocent boy kidnapped!"

"I ain't no boy and I ain't gettin' kidnapped!" I yelled angrily. Damn cooks! Think I'm weak for no reason at all! 'Course, compared to some of the baddies in this world, I _was_ pretty weak, but let's not dwell on that right now, eh?

"SHUT THE HELL UP YOU BAKA EGGPLANTS!" Zeff bellowed over the ruckus.

We shut the hell up.

"Have you ever had the experience of starving to death?" the best cook growled. "Can you imagine how horrible it is? Having no food or water in this vast ocean?"

"W-What do you mean, jiisan?" Patty said.

"The difference between all of you and Sanji and Damon is that those two know that feeling."

The cooks frowned and looked at each other, muttering, "What does he mean? What do those two know about?"

Zeff gritted his teeth. "Rather than just standing around here like morons with petty talk, you'd all better leave this place now!" The chefs gasped.

Patty gripped his weapon. "I'm staying here to fight! I can't let them simply trample over me like a common dog!" He hit the end of his staff thing on the floor. Next to him, Carne nodded.

"This is the place of my work!" another chef agreed.

"I have no other place to go anyway."

One by one, the rest of the cooks also reestablished their grips on their weapons and raised them, grinning. Ghin looked from one to the other, gasping in horror. He knelt low and slapped his hands against the floor, making all of us jump and look at him.

"What are you doing?" he freaked. "Didn't you see how strong my captain is?"

"Oi, Ghin."

Ghin blinked.

Sanji walked forward with one hand in a pocket and the other on his hip, saying, "Feeding the hungry is what being a cook is all about." He placed his leg on the leg of a table that had been turned on its side, swept down, and the table was flung into the air before it landed on all fours, upright. He sat on it smoothly. I stared. That had been pretty damn legit. "But now that your captain's all filled up, he's nothing more than a plunderer. Whatever I do to your pals, don't come bitchin' at me. I'll kill anybody who tries to take this restaurant! Including you!"

Lucy nodded. "Same here. If they think they can take my nakama, they've got another thing coming!"

"Get that?" They said in unison.

Ghin swallowed.

Patty snorted, unamused. "Heh. So you saved his life just to kill him off later, eh? You're so thoughtful, Sanji!"

Lucy turned to us happily. "Didn't I tell you he was something?"

"Who cares about him now?!" Usopp stared. "We'd better get the hell outta here or Damon's gonna die!"

"Calm down," Zoro groaned. "Even though he's Krieg, he's all battered up."

Our captain turned to the man by the door. "Oi! Ghin! You said once before that you knew nothing about the Grand Line, right? But you _have_ been there, haven't you?" The cooks all raised their eyebrows. Said second-in-command swallowed and looked at the floor.

"The truth is I really don't know anything. What happened at the Grand Line on the seventh day... Was it a dream? Or reality...? It's still fresh in my mind... It was unbelievable. Just one man destroyed a whole fleet of 50 ships!"

The cooks' jaws dropped, as did mine and Usopp's. Sure, I had heard this all before, but hearing it in real life was so different! Fifty ships sunk by one man in a world without powerful bombs or anything crazy like that... It was remarkably scary to think about. I could barely wrap my mind around the idea of someone that powerful, and I knew who was it, even!

Usopp and Lucy screamed like morons.

"NANI?!" everyone shouted.

* * *

**cue suspenseful commercial break thingy!**

* * *

"It all happened so suddenly," Ghin continued. "He just appeared out of nowhere, sinking ships one after the other! if a storm hadn't showed up all of sudden, our flag ship would've been doomed too." He shook his head in disbelief. "I don't know how many of my nakama died in that brutal attack, but I refused to accept that it had happened! I don't even want to think about it!

"That man... His stare pierces right through you, like the eyes of a hawk!"

Zoro gasped. "Nani?" Usopp turned to look at him, tilting his had in confusion. "What did you say...?"

"That guy," Zeff supplied, "is probably the man known as 'Hawk Eyes.' The fact that you noticed his eyes leads me to believe it was him. It sounds like something he would do."

"The Hawk Eyes Man!" Zoro muttered, shaking, though with fear or anticipation I couldn't tell.

Lucy bent back to look at him. "You know that dude, Zoro?"

Marimo relaxed. "That's the man I've been looking for. I sailed across the oceans in search of him. Maybe he had some kind of grudge to settle with you guys...?"

"Not that I know of." Ghin denied.

"Perhaps you disturbed his nap," Zeff offered.

"STOP THE BULLSHIT! Why in the world would he destroy our fleet just for that?"

"I would," I muttered.

"Don't get so worked up. I'm just making suggestions. Stuff like that happens at the Grand Line."

Now that all the excitement was siphoning out, I was getting bored. ADHD, which I suspected I had, tends to do that to a person. I pulled out my iPod from my jeans pocket and selected the album _Some Nights_ by _Fun._ on my playlist, plugging in my earbuds at the same time. "Fun." was one of my favorite bands.

I totally zoned out for the next few minutes, happily listening to random songs on the album like _Carry On, All Alright, _and others. Then a sudden groaning and creaking like a ship splitting apart worked its way over the sound of my earbuds, and I pulled them out in surprise. "Hey, what's going on?" I asked, pressing the pause button.

"What was that?" Lucy wondered.

Usopp was stammering something nobody could understand.

Then out of nowhere, the floor started shaking and there was the sound of a giant wave outside, and the entire ship started rocking crazily from side to side. I was knocked into Lucy and we rolled across the floor, ending up in an awkward position (me on top, her on bottom, like an ecchi anime or something) when it finally calmed down.

"Oi! Get off of my darling Lucy-chan, you bastard!" roared Sanji, in overprotective mode.

"Shut it, ero-cook," I muttered, getting off of Lucy.

"We're gonna sink!" a chef shouted.

"Go hoist the anchor or our ship'll get pulled under with Krieg's!" Zeff bellowed. One of his subordinates did as he was told.

"This is bad!" Zoro worried. "Nami, Johnny, and Yosaku are still on our ship!"

"They'll be fine," I told him, but he completely ignored me and jumped to action. Usopp blinked and ran after him.

"We may already be too late!"

"I said they'd be fine," I sighed, sweatdropping. I shook my head and followed suit. Out on the floating restaurant's deck, we could all see what had happened: Don Krieg's flagship had been... it was... it was cut cleanly in two, and both parts were sinking!

All our jaws dropped.

Two shouts of "Aniki!" turned our attention away from the remains of the flagship. Johnny and Yosaku were in the ocean, somehow managing not to drown.

"Are you guys alright?!" Lucy called, running to the railing.

"Where's the ship?" Zoro growled.

"What happened to Nami?" asked Usopp.

"She's..." Johnny moaned. "I'm sorry aniki! She left!"

"Nami-aneki," Yosaku cried, "she took all the treasure and sailed away!"

There was a short pause. Then all of us turned blue and shouted, "WHAT DID YOU SAY?!"

**T****O BE CONTINUED**

* * *

**Phew! Boy am I glad I got THAT done!**** Hope you enjoyed this chapter. Fighting is coming soon!**

Damon: You said it would be in this chapter!

No I didn't. I just said it was soon.

Damon: This chapter.

Nope.

Damon: Shit-author.

Usopp: That was so scary! WAAAAAAH!

Lucy: What's wrong with Usopp? Will meat make him feel better?

Damon: *sweatdrops* I highly doubt that, Lucy-chan.

**By the way, like I mentioned earlier, I have a sister account on fictionpress! That account's name is also 'TheRealEvanSG,' and I currently have three stories up and running, plus another story planned. If you want to read some of my original work, just go there and check me out!**

**Don't forget to follow/favorite/review if you liked this chapter of One Piece: Full Blast!**

**-TheRealEvanSG**


	7. No 7: Zoro and Damon Fall into the Sea!

**Whoa... I've really gotten a long way with this story in such a short time. Thank you so much to the 26 people who have followed ****_OP Full Blast_****, the 19 people who have added this story to their favorites list, and to all the contributors to the 11 reviews! Thank you so, so much! Also thanks to ****_gamelover41592 _****for the ideas you suggest! It's much appreciated. :)**

Damon: Yeah, whatever. Can we just skip to the fighting now?

Lucy: Meat! Give me meat!

Krieg: I WILL RULE THE WORLD! MUAHAHAHAHA!

Damon: What the hell are YOU doing here? This comment section is for protagonists ONLY, Mr. Fugly!

**Okay, okay... CHAPTER START!**

* * *

The Battles Commence!  


Zoro and Damon Fall into the Sea!?

* * *

_Two shouts of "Aniki!" turned our attention away from the remains of the flagship. Johnny and Yosaku were in the ocean, somehow managing not to drown._

_"Are you guys alright?!" Lucy called, running to the railing._

_"Where's the ship?" Zoro growled._

_"What happened to Nami?" asked Usopp._

_"She's..." Johnny moaned. "I'm sorry aniki! She left!"_

_"Nami-aneki," Yosaku cried, "she took all the treasure and sailed away!"_

_There was a short pause. Then all of us turned blue and shouted, "WHAT DID YOU SAY?!"_

After Johnny and Yosaku had finished telling the tale of Nami's disappearance, which of course I already knew, there was a pregnant pause. Then finally, I said, "You two are the biggest bakas ever."

"We're sorry, Damon-aniki!" Johnny sniffed.

"Hentai." said Lucy distastefully.

"Says the one who takes her clothes off in full view of everyone on the ship," I muttered, looking at her side-eyed.

The two pirate hunting brothers (were they actually brothers or just friends? I'd never been too sure) had been hauled out of the ocean thanks to my new-found powers, and had just wasted five minutes of our time kneeling in front of us, telling a story of stupidity and pervertedness. Neither Lucy nor I quite liked the fact that they'd wanted to see Nami changing, even though she hadn't actually been changing in the first place, but I let it slide because we had more pressing matters on our hands; for instance, the fact that we had a missing ship and that Don Krieg's ship had just been _SPLIT IN FREAKIN' TWO AND IT WAS FOUR FREAKIN' TIMES THE SIZE OF THE GOING MERRY! _Though it was a bit strange Lucy knew what a pervert was... maybe because she was a girl and Ace had warned her about perverts?

But I digress.

We were all growling in anger, except for me since I knew why Nami had betrayed us. (Though it still hurt a little.) Usopp was tic-pulsing and his nose was twitching, and Zoro had actually punched the wall in exasperation, which had to hurt.

"Damn!" the swordsman exploded. "She took advantage of us!"

"Kaya-chan gave us that ship..." Usopp hissed.

"Relax, Usopp-kun, Zoro-kun," I sighed. "We'll get it back. It _is _the ship of the Straw Hat pirates, after all."

Lucy jumped up onto the railing and peered out to sea, shielding her eyes from the sun. "Hey, wait! I can still see it! It's the Going Merry!" She turned to the Dumb Duo. "Where's your ship?"

Johnny and Yosaku regarded her, frowning. "We still have it but..."

She folded her hands under her chest, which accidentally cupped her boobs up and made me blush a little. "Zoro, Usopp, Damon, leave right away! Get Nami and our ship back!"

Zoro waved his hands dismissively, much calmer now. "Never mind," he quipped. "Let it go. There's no need to chase _that_ woman."

"Plus I'm not officially a member of your crew, Lucy-chan," I pointed out smugly. "You can't tell me what to do... yet."

"Darn..." Lucy pouted. Then she glared at her first mate. "I can't be without Nami as our navigator!" she whined.

Usopp hummed in disapproval while I grinned. "Actually, it's true," I agreed. "She's the best person for the job. She's really quite an amazing cartographer, and on top of that her knowledge of the sea and the weather is astounding. Nami can even predict storms on the Grand Line, where they pop up almost at random."

"Hontou?!" the captain gasped. (Really?) "Sugoi..."

Zoro, Lucy, and I had a minute-long glare off. Lucy and I won.

"Oh, fine!" The swordsman relented, rubbing his forehead. "What a pain-in-the-ass captain..."

I nodded sagely. "Tell me about it."

"Oi!" Said captain protested.

"Well, Usopp, let's go."

Johnny raised an eyebrow. "What about Damon-aniki?"

"I'm staying right here and Zoro knows it," I informed him.

"A, so desu ka."

Johnny and Yosaku ran off and came back a little later with their small, slightly beat up boat. It had an unremarkable canvas sail with nothing on it and creaked a bit as it rode the undulating waves. I wasn't sure about its seaworthiness, but I wouldn't be on it, so it didn't matter to me very much. Plus, I knew they'd be fine.

"Get on with 'em, Damon!" Lucy ordered.

I shook my head stubbornly. "Nuh-uh."

"Captain's orders!"

"You ain't my captain, Sherlock."

"What's Sherlock? Is it a type of meat?"

I almost burst into laughter. "No, baka! It's a detective from- -" I froze. I still hadn't told them I'd came from a different world. For all they knew, I was just an average guy from an island here. I wasn't sure how they'd react if they knew I was from another world, and although I told myself I didn't want to travel with them, I also didn't want them to hate me or to ban me from their ship or something. "From my island," I decided.

"Hey minnas, the ship's ready!" Johnny called, dropping the anchor.

"Lucy, what about you?" Zoro asked.

She blinked. "What about me?"

"Are you coming?"

"Oh. No, I'm gonna beat up Don Krieg. I haven't repaid Chef Zeff yet, so I can't go."

"Oh, okay. Just... be careful, okay? Things here aren't normal."

I snorted. "Telling Lucy-chan to be careful is like telling a zebra not to have stripes, and you better get used to things being not normal 'round here, Zoro-kun."

The swordsman frowned deeply at this, but shrugged and boarded the small fishing boat.

Lucy glared at me. "I'll be careful!"

I rolled my eyes.

Over from the pile of timber and driftwood that used to be Don Krieg's mother ship, voices drifted across the ocean on a salty breeze. "W-What's going on? The ship's been split in two!"

"Looks like Krieg and his men are recovering," I noticed.

"Look!" A guy with a ponytail shouted. "Over there!"

Everybody turned. A single, chilling raft was floating to the Baratie, with one occupant sitting cross-legged on it. Four candles burning with green flames flickered and winked at the corners of the raft, and a large cross rose up behind the man aboard it.

"Don Krieg!" someone panicked. "It's _that man_! The guy who destroyed our ship!"

I swallowed nervously. That... that's...

"That man is..." Zoro gasped, his body starting to shake - but whether in fear or anticipation, I wasn't sure. He swallowed as the tension in the atmosphere grew heavier and heavier. "That man is Hawk Eyes Mihawk!"

Krieg and another man I didn't recognize stepped into view. The newcomer was shrouded in a black cloak, so I couldn't quite see him or her, but the person seemed to radiate evil, like when I first met Aeso so long ago. But this evil felt different. It felt... I don't know, _darker_.

"Who's that?" Lucy asked me.

I frowned. "I don't know..."

But even as I said that, I knew. It had to be a god or a demon. There was no doubt about it. The cloaked person hadn't been in the anime or the manga, and Aeso had said I'd be meeting his kin... or something like that.

"That scum..." Krieg growled.

A smooth masculine voice rolled out of the cloak, carrying an English accent. "Ah, I see my target is here," it said. "Very good, Mr. Krieg. As soon as I defeat him, you shall have both your knowledge... and insurmountable riches."

His target?

That didn't mean me, right? I hoped not, but it certainly seemed that way, since there was no other reason for him to be here, really...

"He's come this far to kill us!" A pirate yelled.

"We're doomed!" another added.

Lucy frowned at Zoro. "Who's Mihawk?"

The swordsman clenched his fists. "The man I've been looking for... the strongest swordsman in the world."

"Hawk Eyes Mihawk..." Lucy tilted her head so her straw hat and hair shadowed her face, making her expression invisible and unreadable.

Mihawk looked tall, though I couldn't really tell since he was so far away. He wore a black and red shirt that was open to reveal his toned chest, and a necklace that dangled another smaller cross on the end was hanging off his, well, neck. He had a Spanish conquistador-style mustache and a beard that ran along the contours of his face. He also had a very pirate-like hat with a feather on it.

My first thought was, _Creepy!_

My second thought was, _Is he like some kinda Yankee Doodle rip off? _

Blame my ADHD.

Nearer to the entrance of the Baratie, Patty gasped. "That's the guy who instantly sank Don Krieg's fleet of 50 ships, which should've been able to withstand the might of the Grand Line?"

"And he just destroyed another of Krieg's ships!..." Carne added in horrified shock.

"But he looks no different from any normal person..." one of the chefs said. "And he doesn't seem to be armed with anything special."

"He carries his weapon on his back," I told him.

Zeff raised an eye brow. "That's right... Damon, was it?"

I nodded in confirmation.

Carne looked from me to Chef Zeff. "No way! You don't mean...? He destroyed the ship with a sword _that_ huge?"

I could understand the chef's disbelief. The sword was at least twice the size of Mihawk.

"He's the great swordsman, Mihawk," Zeff said, folding his arms across his chest. "A swordsman above all the world's swordsmen."

Mihawk raised his head, and his deadly yellow eyes pierced at me, visible even from so far away.

A bead of sweat ran down Zoro's cheek, and he swallowed again.

"Why did you attack us!?" a sandy haired pirate demanded, upset.

Mihawk regarded him coolly. "To kill time," was his simple answer.

Whoa. That cold glance... the simple fact that he'd go after someone with Krieg's strength... and the fact that he was the greatest swordsman in the One Piece universe. My eyes sparked, and I was pretty sure little sparkles were floating around me. The other Straw Hats stared at me in confusion.

"CAN I HAVE YOUR AUTOGRAPH?!" I shouted. Everybody fell over anime-style.

There was a pause. A very awkward pause. Then...

"No," said Mihawk.

I pouted. "Meanie..."

"You act like a girl sometimes," Zoro sniggered.

"Oi! I'm a delinquent, not a girl!"

The guy from before stood up and aimed two pistols at Mihawk. "You destroyed our fleet just to kill time?! Bullshit!" He fired the pistols, but Mihawk simply moved his black sword and... nothing happened.

"Nani?!" the sandy haired pirate gasped. "I missed...?"

"It deviated." Zoro amended, suddenly standing right behind the pirate, who turned in surprise. "He redirected it with the tip of his sword."

Mihawk sheathed the sword.

"That's ridiculous!" the guy snapped.

"When did Zoro get over there?" I wondered.

The pirate glared at Zoro as he stepped forward, one hand on Wado Ichimonji. "Hey!" he exploded. "Who the hell are you?"

A fat man with a head like an onion popped up. "Swords... three of 'em! Could it be...?"

"I've never seen such graceful skill." Zoro called.

Mihawk shrugged. "A sword with power alone is not powerful at all."

"So this ship was cut apart by that sword, eh?"

"Of course."

Zoro grinned. "It's clear now. You're definitely the strongest. I've been sailing these seas to meet you."

Mihawk tilted his head down. "What's your mission?"

Our swordsman wrapped his green bandana around his green hair. "To be the best!"

Mihawk smirked. "Fool."

As Lucy's first mate unsheathed his swords, he said, "What's the matter? You've got time to spare, don't you? Whaddya say we duel?"

The pirates around him gasped. "This guy is Zoro! Roronoa Zoro, the "Three Swords!"

"Nani!?"

Krieg raised an eyebrow. "Bounty hunter, eh?"

The man next to him shrugged- -or at least, I thought he did. It was hard to tell beneath that cloak of his. "He's none of my concern," he said. "I'm just here for the Digger boy."

My blood ran cold. I was right, unfortunately. The cloaked guy was here for me!

"Oi!" Usopp said, turning to Lucy. "Things are getting worse, Lucy-chan! The Going Merry is about to be too far away for us to see! Oi, Lucy!" But our captain ignored him, facing Zoro and Mihawk instead.

The greatest swordsman regarded Zoro. "A duel? Such a pitiful weakling." In a move almost too fast for my eyes to register, he jumped from his raft to Don Krieg's broken ship. "If you really were a fine swordsman, you should've been able to judge the difference in our strengths before you even drew your sword. Challenging me... Are you simply that brave? Or are you that stupid?"

"Both!" I yelled. Zoro glared at me.

"This is for my own ambition, and because of a promise to a fallen friend!"

Patty stared at the Marimo. "The greatest swordsman, Hawk Eyes Mihawk, versus the renowned Three-Swords-Style Roronoa Zoro... This will surely be a crazy fight!"

"No one can win against Aniki!" Yosaku bragged.

Johnny nodded and pounded his fists together. "Yeah! Aniki's the best!"

As the tension skyrocketed, Mihawk reached for the golden cross on his neck, pulled it off, and produced a knife from it. No, not a knife... more like a toy sword that you would give to a doll soldier or something! It was freakin' TINY!

Zoro stared. "Oi! What's the meaning of this?!"

The Yankee Doodle rip-off just pointed it at him. "I'm unlike those bakas who use their all to hunt rabbits," he quipped, his piercing eyes feeling like they were staring right through us. "Though you're famous enough to be called a swordsman, this is the weakest of the four oceans, the East Blue. Unfortunately, I am not carrying anything smaller than this at the moment."

I shook my head. "And yet, even though this is the weakest sea, the former Kaizokou King was born here. Talk about irony, eh?"

He peered at me. "...I suppose that is true."

"Quit mocking me!" the Straw Hats' first mate exploded, clenching Wado Ichimonji between his teeth and drawing the other two swords. He dashed forward, readying himself to attack. "Just don't regret it when you die!"

I looked on in interest. Roronoa Zoro was the man who was gonna be the world's strongest swordsman, and I had a chance to see him fight in real life! Who knew if I would ever be able to see this again? After all, that cloaked dude could kill me, or if I beat him, I might even leave Lucy's crew to sail by themselves...

"You're nothing but a brat who has yet to experience the real world," Hawk Eyes taunted, pulling his arm back.

"ONI GIRI!"

_CLANG._

"N... Nani?!" Marimo gasped.

Everybody stared in awed shock. Zoro's eyes widened in surprise and maybe a little fear, and his hands shook. Somehow, Mihawk had blocked all three swords with just his little toy knife! I held back a yelp. This dude was seriously powerful!

"Whoa!" Lucy backed up a little.

Johnny couldn't believe his eyes. "Aniki's demon technique was... BROKEN?"

"But that has always worked 100% of the time!" Yosaku protested. "What in the world happened?"

I studied the position of Zoro's three swords, then had a light bulb moment. "Ah!" I said. "I see. At one point in his attack, all three swords cross at the same point, and it is possible to block the attack if you intercept it at this point. That's what Mihawk did."

Usopp gulped. "You mean he's _that_ powerful?!"

"THE WORLD SHOULDN'T BE THIS FAR OFF!" Zoro bellowed. He pulled back and threw attacks at Mihawk like an insane guy, his swords flashing through the air so fast they looked like a blur. Repetitive sounds of metal on metal rose up into the air, proving that his opponent had blocked each and every one of them. Zoro increased the strength of the blows, but he just couldn't get past the other man's defense.

"Sugoi..." I murmured.

Lucy clenched her fist.

"Hate to interrupt..." a voice drawled behind me, making me jump and turn. It was the unknown person in the black cloak! "But do you mind if you and I have a little duel, Damon-san?"

I narrowed my eyes. "What are you? What is your purpose? And why are you after me?"

It looked like he shrugged again, but like I said before, that stupid cloak made it impossible to tell. "I'm an interested third party. A demon, I suppose. I can't reveal why I'm here, as that's classified information... but I can say that you're the only one with the power to stand in our way, because only a demigod can kill a demon."

Lucy, who sometime during the conversation had turned to look at us, pouted and tilted her head in confusion. "What's a demi... whatever you said?"

"Demigod," I amended. "It's a person who's half-human."

"Half-human?" Usopp asked. I hadn't noticed it before, but he was looking at us now, too. "If you're only half-human, then what's your other half?"

I opened my mouth to answer, but a pained shout cut me off. Zoro had fallen to the ground, still tightly gripping his three swords. A short, ugly gash had opened up across his shoulder. Johnny and Yosaku were shouting something about how this "couldn't be happening," and how he "had to fight seriously."

"ZORO!" Usopp shrieked.

"So what do you say, son of Aeso?" the hidden figure continued. "Duel or no duel? I can kill you either way, but if you duel me, it'll be so much more fun."

Our attentions were turned back to him.

"Uh, so what are you again?" Usopp queried.

I gritted my teeth.

Well, now was as good a time as any to tell them my secret. "...God. I'm half-human and half-god."

A shocked silence filled the area, so quiet that the only thing you could hear was the waves crashing against the Baratie and surrounding ships. Even Zoro and Mihawk had stopped fighting in surprise, though the latter simply raised an eyebrow, his expression otherwise staying the same.

"Half-god?..." A Krieg Pirate echoed. "Does something like that even exist?"

I rolled my eyes. "Seeing as how I'm standing in front of you and I have powers over the sea, I'd say 'yes.'"

Lucy tilted her head to the other side. "But... didn't you say you'd eaten a Devil Fruit?"

I hung my head. "Yeah. Sorry. I had to lie because I didn't want you to think I'm a freak..."

"So you're a demigod." Johnny grinned, which surprised me. "WHOA! Damon-aniki is amazing!"

Amazing? That wasn't the reaction I expected. But hey, he didn't hate me. Maybe the others wouldn't, either. But then again, the Bounty Hunting Duo were big-time idiots...

"Sugoi!" Luce cheered, her face lighting up. "We've got an angel-demigod who can control the ocean! THIS IS SO COOL!"

I sweatdropped. "Baka. I already said that I'm not an angel."

"Just deal with it," Usopp sighed, shaking his head.

"Well, what do you think?" I prodded.

"Eh?"

"About me being a demigod. Aren't you freaked out?"

He blinked and shook his head. "No. I mean, you're still the same Damon we've traveled with for the past two weeks..."

Wow. Of all people, I'd have thought he'd be the first to call me a freak. Then again, after Thriller Bark, he basically lives with a walking, talking skeleton and takes it for granted.

Zoro simply shrugged, then glared at Mihawk and went back to playing with sharp objects. I took this to mean that demigod or not, he didn't care about me either way.

"Well, what's your verdict?" the cloaked man said. "Will you fight me? Or will you let me kill you without any fun?"

I turned and smirked. My friends had given me confidence, even if they hadn't meant to. I raised my fists and said, "Very well, demon. Let's duel."

* * *

Let me just say that doing battle with a demon is not as fun as it sounds. For one thing, they're immortal and they can't die. For another thing, each one has different powers over human nature (they DID used to be gods, after all) and is dangerously powerful. And getting hit so hard that you fly back into the wall HURTS LIKE FRIGGIN' HELL!

_WHAM! _The man's first attack sent me flying into the side of the Baratie, which caused Chef Zeff to tic-pulse.

"Oi, you eggplant!" he barked. "Watch what you hit!"

"How am I supposed to control which way I get smacked to?" I snapped, picking myself up out of the rubble of the wall. "Baka jiisan!" I dusted off my leather jacket and narrowed my eyes. It looked like the demon was smirking under his cloak.

"Oh, that's it," I muttered. "Nobody laughs at me!"

I'd had enough of being laughed at on the streets. No _way_ was I gonna kowtow to anyone now that I had super awesome powers! I gritted my teeth and summoned stuck my hands straight out. "Mimic!" I snarled. I concentrated on the sea around me, something I'd been practicing doing for the past week. Twin streams of water rose out of the ocean and formed into hands, making the pirates watching on the sidelines gasp.

"What the hell is _that_?" someone yelped.

"Is he a Devil Fruit user?" another mused.

"No way," the first retorted. "They said he's a demigod, not a Devil Fruit user. But I thought the last of the legacies had been exterminated twenty years ago..."

I blinked, almost losing control of the water hands.

The cloaked man ignored them and regarded me carefully. "Ah, so it's as I thought," he said, sounding smug. "That bastard Aeso has given life to more scum. Well, then I'll personally make sure you never see the light of day again!"

"Oi, bastard!" Krieg complained. "I thought we agreed to only severely injure him! No killing!"

"Shut up, aho-kaizokou."

I folded my hands into fists, and the ocean-hands did the same. I threw a punch at the air, and the left hand of the ocean barreled straight to the cloaked demon, whose eyes widened. He made an impossibly large leap into the air and cleared the punch, causing the hand to explode on contact with the Baratie's side and seep back into the sea.

The demon landed lightly on his feet and muttered, "Not bad. Especially for someone who only discovered his heritage two weeks ago and only accepted it today..."

"How do you know so much about me?" I asked.

"We've been watching you ever since you came into this world," he said simply. I froze and looked at my crewmates, but they appeared not to have heard the last part. "Now, enough. It's time to reveal myself. My name is Ug Lee, and I will be the one to defeat you, spawn of the sea." He tore off the cloak to reveal a toned body covered only in ripped jeans and a football cap.

The only things I could think to say were, "Demons like the Steelers?" and "Who names their kid Ugly?"

"Shut up!" Ugly exploded. His face, which normally might have been handsome, was now twisted into an, well, ugly sneer, and he looked downright disgusting. He was also so tanned it was hard to tell if he was black or white. "It's UG... LEE! Got it? There's a pause! But you can just call me Lee."

I sweatdropped. "Who the hell is coming up with these names? First Aeso, then Vio, then Ug Lee..."

He folded his hands into fists, too, but before he could charge me I quickly swiped with my hand. The ocean hand smashed into him. Lee must've forgotten about it, because he was thrown to the side and came up sputtering sea water.

"Bastard," he mumbled. "Too unpredictable, just like your bastard father." He reached for his side, and I only just noticed a lightsaber-like sword grip hanging there. He pressed a button on it, and sure enough, a beam of light erupted from its innards, and it was red.

"What is that?!" Usopp shrieked.

"SUGOI!" Lucy gasped. Then Johnny and Yosaku shouted something about Mihawk saying Zoro was a weakling, and she turned, stretched her arms, and brought them back, saying, "No, bakas!" But she too was growling, and I could tell that it was taking all the strength she had to hold herself back.

I snickered at the demon. "What are you, Darth Ugly?"

Everybody looked at me confused, except for Lee, who just tic-pulsed and shouted, "THAT'S IT! PREPARE TO DIE AT THE HANDS OF THE DEMON OF LIGHT!"

Then two pained shouts of "NO! ANIKI!" ripped our attentions away from Ug Lee and I, and I glanced to the side. My eyes widened. Zoro was kneeling on the ground, back turned from Mihawk and two of his swords broken. But even as I watched, he wouldn't accept defeat and turned back, holding his hands out at his sides.

"What are you doing?" the Spanish pirate asked.

"Scars on the back are a swordsman's shame," stated Zoro. And with that, Mihawk smirked and pointed his black blade.

"Well said," he congratulated, and attacked. An ugly red wound opened up on Zoro's chest, spilling blood everywhere, and my eyes widened. My stomach tossed and turned at the gruesome sight and I almost threw up, but a solid punch to my back distracted me from the moment and sent me flying forward.

"GYAH!" I yelled in agony, coughing blood as I spiraled through the air.

"ZORO! DAMON! Damn... damn... DAMN IT!" Lucy voice shouted, but I was in so much pain from that one punch that I couldn't even see anything. There was the sound of rubber snapping.

"Lu... cy..." I coughed. And with that, my body hit the ocean and I sank into the watery depths.

* * *

**Holy shit was this chapter long. *Sweatdrops* It took me all freakin' week to write it! Plus I was grounded from my iPod because my mom made a stupid rule that I wasn't allowed to bring any of my electronics in my room for the entire month of December, or else she'd take 'em away for all of said month... Stupid parents...**

Damon: SHIT-AUTHOR! You freakin' killed me!

Nah, just knocked you unconscious. Anyway, you're in the water now. It'll revive you.

Damon: Ah, true.

Lucy: E-EH?! Damon?! But weren't you were just in the ocean...?

Usopp: *cries anime tears* YAAAAH! It's a ghost! Run!

Damon: *sweatdrops* Bakas...

**Again, thank you for all the support you guys have given me in the past month or so! Don't forget to spread the word if you like _OP: Full Blast_ and also, if you haven't yet, follow or favorite! They aren't necessary for me to continue writing, but I'd still appreciate it. And also don't forget to leave a review saying what you liked about this or what I can change!**

**-TheRealEvanSG**


	8. No 8: Overpowered Damon! Rage of the Sea

**BOO-YAH! And another chapter of ****_OP: Full Blast_**** is here! By the way, who has a gmail? I wrote a prequel to ****_How The Grinch Stole Christmas_**** for my language arts class and it's on my Google Drive. If anyone wants to read it, I can send it to them. For $500. XD just kidding, but really.**

Damon: Nobody cares about no freakin' Grinch. This story is about ME. Got it?

Lucy: What's the Grinch? Is it a type of meat?

Damon: NOBODY CARES, LIKE I SAID!

**Sheesh. Well, fine, grumpy-pants. CHAPTER START!**

* * *

Rage of the Sea!

The Promise Made Two Years Ago

* * *

**Previously on One Piece: Full Blast**

_"Well said," he congratulated, and attacked. An ugly red wound opened up on Zoro's chest, spilling blood everywhere, and my eyes widened. My stomach tossed and turned at the gruesome sight and I almost threw up, but a solid punch to my back distracted me from the moment and sent me flying forward._

_"GYAH!" I yelled in agony, coughing blood as I spiraled through the air._

_"ZORO! DAMON! Damn... damn... DAMN IT!" Lucy voice shouted, but I was in so much pain from that one punch that I couldn't even see anything. There was the sound of rubber snapping._

_"Lu... cy..." I coughed. And with that, my body hit the ocean and I sank into the watery depths._

Black.

That was all I saw as I sunk through the ocean. Not blue, not teal, black. My eyes were closed and I thought I was losing consciousness quickly. I could feel my energy seeping out of me like a leak in a hose. I was losing control of myself, and it was scaring me.

Then, suddenly, I _could_ see again. But what I saw wasn't the ocean or even the Baratie.

It was New York City.

_What the_...? I thought vaguely, but I didn't have time to think much of anything else, because just then my body moved on its own, running forward down the street I was on.

_The hell's going on?!_ I freaked out inwardly.

Then I looked around and understood. My old mentor and friend, Cracked-Up Kane, was standing in front of me protectively and three street kids were backing up slowly, fear in their faces. I could tell they were street kids because most of their clothes were ripped, plus they wore a green bandana around their head. I remembered a gang that was marked by a green bandana- -the Dragon Skulls. Back in the real world, a couple months after I left home, I had managed to piss off this group by accident once and they'd sent three of their toughest fighters after me in retaliation. But just before they could beat me up _too_ badly, Cracked-Up Kane had stopped them.

_Must be a flashback... _I realized. This scene resembled that memory to the letter.

"You bastards," growled Kane. "How dare you attack my friend! And he's weaker than you, no less! Go pick on someone your own size unless you want to be beaten to a pulp!"

"C-Cracked-Up Kane!" one of the guys whimpered.

One guy with a W-shaped mustache that was actually pretty cool stared in horror. "Not even the leader of Black Tooth could stand against him!"

"You guys sure have some weird gang names," Past-Me muttered.

They ignored me and fled in terror.

Kane dropped his stance and bent to his knees, coughing. Several passersby stopped and looked in slight concern, but just kept on walking. After all, it didn't bother _them_. But I immediately dropped to his side and shook him lightly, worry etched into my (back then) normally angry expression.

"Oi! Kane!" I said. "Are you okay? What's wrong?"

He coughed some more, and I saw blood on the street. My eyes widened.

Kane hesitated, then coughed again. "I'm... I'm sick," he managed. "Sorry I never told you sooner. The last doctor I went to, a friend and another gang member, said that I only have a few more years of life. Fighting... _hack!_...just shortens my time span."

He wiped his mouth and I set my jaw. "Kane." Past-Me whispered. "I promise that I'll get stronger so you don't have to exert yourself for a nobody like me. I'll... I'll be the best martial artist ever!"

My mentor rose to his feet and smirked, some blood still dripping off his second chin. "I know you will, Damon."

* * *

"That's right..." I murmured, seeing black once again as the flashback ended. "I promised to be the strongest martial artist. I can't... I can't lose now!"

My eyes snapped open and took in the azure sea water all around me. Wreckage from Krieg's ship was visible through the depths and I thought I saw someone swimming towards me... a very familiar someone with a mouthful of air, a bandana around his head, and long curly hair around his neck.

"Usopp?" I gasped. Lucy must have sent him to retrieve me before I could drown. Then I realized something. "Wait... hold on, I'm talking underwater! How the hell is that possible?" I blinked and suddenly had an epiphany. "Ah, yes. Must be because of my sea powers." And now that I thought about it, I could move myself again. Plus, I was breathing no problem. And it felt like there was a much larger life force all around me, transferring energy from itself into me, making me stronger. Almost an impossibly, infinitely large life force...

I blinked in comprehension. "It's the ocean. It's... alive." I grinned, feeling as good as new. In fact, I didn't even feel any pain from my previous injuries. It must have been the ocean healing me. I laughed out loud, scaring the hell out of Usopp, who nearly let loose his air.

"This is awesome!" I cheered, smiling wider than Lucy. Usopp looked at me with an expression of equal shock and confusion. I tilted my body upwards, aiming for a patch of water shimmered and flickered: the surface directly above me. Then as a thought hit me, I sent out my thoughts to the life force of the ocean and gave it a command. It obeyed, pressure building around my feet.

"Tempest Rocket!" I yelled, once again scaring the hell out of Usopp.

_FWOOM!_

Grinning madly, I shot upward. If anyone else would've broken the surface that quickly, the change in the water pressure would've knocked them out or at least broken their eardrums; but I was fine, and I assumed it was because of my demigodishness. Whatever the case, I blasted out of the air and landed lightly on the deck of the Baratie, dripping sea water and basically scaring the shit out of everyone on deck. I was doing that a lot lately.

"It's... It's Damon!" gasped Lucy, standing near Mihawk, while Sanji was looking at me bug-eyed. The Spanish swordsman just raised an eyebrow in mild interest, and my enemy the demon was busy picking his jaw off of the Baratie's deck. Johnny and Yosaku were on their fishing boat and bent over (I assumed attending to Zoro's wounds). Krieg looked like he was lost for words. Usopp chose that moment to break the surface, spitting sea water.

"But..." Ug Lee complained, "but that should've killed you! How the hell are you still alive!?"

I smirked and turned to him. "If you think punching me into the water'll kill me, you've got another thing coming! Your punches are freakin' _weak_, bastard!"

He narrowed his eyes. "Ah, yes... I should've known. You're the son of that damned Aeso. Water will heal you."

"Really?" Lucy's face lit up. "SUGOI~!"

"You have gathered together an interesting crew, Straw Hat girl." said Mihawk, smirking. "I wait for the day when your swordsman friend faces me once again."

He went to leave, but Krieg recovered and whined something about not fighting him and being the greatest of the East Blue, opting to open fire on Dracule Mihawk. I ignored them, focusing instead on my target, Ug Lee.

"Oi! Aho-demon!" I taunted, earning me a glare from said baddie. "You ready to end things for real?"

His face hardened. "Of course." Lee raised his fists and charged, yelling nasty vulgar stuff I'm not willing to repeat, and simply smirked deeper and readied myself.

Ug Lee was almost on top of me. "Very well. This is the rage of the sea. Hawk Blast!" I bellowed, walloping him in the eye. He was thrown back from the force of my attack, but I didn't have time to be surprised at my strength. The Krieg Pirates and the chefs were, though, along with Usopp, and they all gasped.

"N-Nani?!" Usopp shrieked, now back on the ship with Johnny and Yosaku. "What a powerful punch..."

Lucy hit her palm with her other fist, her short black hair blowing in the cool sea breeze. "Oh, right! Usopp! Johnny! Yosaku! Zoro! Go after Nami and bring her back right away!"

"Hai!" they agreed, and set sail.

Ug Lee rose from the wreckage of the barrels he'd smashed into, rubbing his eye. "Bastard," he grumbled. He took out his light saber thing again and pointed it at me. "I guess I shouldn't take you lightly then!"

"Damn straight," I agreed. "Tempest Fist!" Water spiraled up from the ocean and wrapped itself around my right fist. I vaguely wondered what the heck I was doing, since I was pretty much acting on instinct and auto pilot here, but I charged Ug Lee, just as he was doing to me. My opponent slashed with the light saber but I ducked under it and retaliated.

_WHAM!_

I drew my arm back and slammed it forward, this time into his chest. Water sprayed around me and everyone gasped at the attack. I drove my hand upward and Ug Lee was lifted into the air almost in slow motion, eyes popping out of his head and the breath getting knocked clean out of him. The light saber was thrown somewhere into the sea.

"Amazing..." a chef said.

"What power... Who _is_ he?" Sanji asked.

Zeff smirked. "Isn't that simple enough, you eggplant? He's a demigod!"

As the demon of light sailed sky high into the... well... sky, I jumped onto the sea, imagining it hardening beneath me. I landed smoothly on it and only realized briefly the awesomeness of what I was doing. I was freakin' walking on water!

"Tempest Rocket!" I repeated, and blasted myself up with Ug Lee. As I went, I directed my thoughts into the ocean once again. "Tempest Leg!" Water swirled around my leg this time and I delivered a devastating kick into the evil dude's chest, following it up by wrapping water around both of my fists as we dropped at equal speeds.

"Tempest Boxing!" I punched with both fists time after time, a fearsome combo of Lucy-level attacks. Or at least, I guessed Lucy level attacks. I had felt like I had enough power right now that it was easily within reach.

We smashed into the deck of the Baratie and Ug Lee coughed blood, eyes wide and a flicker of fear running through them.

I smirked. "And now it's time to end this! TEMPEST HAWK BLAST!"

One layer of water wrapped around my right hand and arm. Then a second, and finally a third. I felt power surging through me like an electrical outlet. I felt unbeatable, unstoppable, invincible! As my fist descended into Ug Lee's face, the deck splintered and gained a small crater-shaped hole that the demon fell through.

Silence once again filled the area. The energy that had filled me before was draining out of me, and my breath started coming in ragged gasps. My arms and leg ached stubbornly, and as I sat down Indian style against the wall, I briefly wondered if I had overdone it.

"Sugoi..." Lucy said. I wouldn't have been surprised if she was permanently stuck on that same word, like a broken gramophone or something.

"That was totally overpowered..." grumbled Sanji.

"YOU EGGPLANT!" Zeff shouted angrily. "YOU HURT MY DAMN RESTAURANT!"

My vision faded. "S-Sorry," I said with a final smirk, and the last of my energy left me. I had driven myself to unconsciousness.

* * *

**Damon's first battle is over, plus I added a flashback! And sorry I made him sound so overpowered like a Gary-Stu character. It's just because Ug Lee is really weak. And wow, two chapters in just one day!  
**

Damon: HELL YEAH BRO! I'm totally awesome!

Lucy: SUGOI!

Damon: Heh heh heh! You know it!

Usopp: Your power is scary... *shivers and hides behind Lucy*

Zoro: Baka.

**Follow/Favorite? Review? *gives irresistible puppy dog eyes that could soften even Nami the Demoness***

** -TheRealEvanSG**


	9. No 9: How to Stop the Apocalypse!

**Almost 30 followers! I'm well on my way to achieving my goal of 100 followers! :D**

Damon: You're still a shit-author... but maybe a bit less of a shit-author since I got to fight...

You're freakin' Christian. WHY THE HELL DO YOU LIKE FIGHTING SO MUCH?

Damon: 'Cause that's the personality you gave me. Anyway, you're Christian too, ya know.

Ah, true, true.

Damon: You know what, I take that back. You're still a shit-author. YOU FRIGGIN MADE ME KNOCK MYSELF OUT! Lame...

Oi...

**Chapter 9 start!**

* * *

Departing to Cocoyashi Village!

How to Stop the Apocalypse  


* * *

**Previously on ****One Piece: Full Blast**

_I smirked. "And now it's time to end this! TEMPEST HAWK BLAST!"_

_One layer of water wrapped around my right hand and arm. Then a second, and finally a third. I felt power surging through me like an electrical outlet. I felt unbeatable, unstoppable, invincible! As my fist descended into Ug Lee's face, the deck splintered and gained a small crater-shaped hole that the demon fell through._

_Silence once again filled the area. The energy that had filled me before was draining out of me, and my breath started coming in ragged gasps. My arms and leg ached stubbornly, and as I sat down Indian style against the wall, I briefly wondered if I had overdone it._

_My vision faded. "S-Sorry," I said with a final smirk, and the last of my energy left me. I had driven myself to unconsciousness._

I once again saw nothing but black, and my only thought was how lame this was.

"Like seriously," I mumbled. "I just fully healed myself and then I knock myself unconscious. How the hell does that work? And why the hell am I talking to myself if I'm unconscious? This entire world is totally screwed up."

Ever since I'd landed in the One Piece universe, my life has been nothing but crazy, crazy, and more crazy. But then again, what did I expect, living with a pirate crew that had a rubber captain? If I expected it to be normal and peaceful, then I must be even crazier than my new life.

"**Ah, Damon,**" a voice that I hadn't heard in over a week said. "**You're still alive. Excellent!**"

"You!" I growled, turning to look behind me. Sure enough, that bat-winged bastard Aeso stood there, scythe swinging dangerously at his side and his cape blowing in a breeze I couldn't feel. He was grinning like an idiot, his red eyes sparkling with amusement.

"**Why so serious, son?**" the god asked me. "**If you hadn't been related to me, you wouldn't have won your fight. Good job, by the way. Very well done! Even though Ug Lee _was_ the least powerful of the demons...**"

"I hope you stab yourself with your scythe," I grumbled. "You still haven't explained why I've been sent here! And why was that dude after me? He wasn't a part of the anime!"

Aeso grinned and nodded. "**Ah, yes, straight to business as before. To start off, you're here to fix the things that are changing and get the history of One Piece back on the right track. Because the way things are going now, the demons could kill all the Marines at the War of the Best which would result in Ace's escape, and, unfortunately, he has to die. Otherwise the Straw Hats will never get as strong as they should.**"

"Wait, Ace _has_ to die?" I said. "There's no way I could save him and still convince Lucy to train for two years, is there?"

He sighed and looked down. "**Unfortunately... no. There have been many attempts in other alternate universes to do so, and none of them have succeeded. Lucy or Luffy, depending on which universe it was, always went back to Shaboady Archipelago to reunite with her/his friends, and ended up dying. The only universe where this didn't happen was the universe of the original One Piece plot, the one without the interruptions of the demons.**"

"So... So I have to let Ace die? His death really is set in stone?" I tried to wrap my head around that. Saving Ace had been a goal I'd had in mind since for the past few days. But then here comes Aeso, saying that if I save Ace, Lucy will end up dead...

"**Yeah. Sorry about that.**" Aeso winced, clearly upset.

"It's not me you need to apologize to. It's Lucy. Anyway, what do I have to do here? The last time we met, you mentioned a quest and me saving the multiverse."

"**Your quest is to defeat all the demons in the world of One Piece or at least stop them from arriving at Marineford. You've gotta train yourself and fight all of them. Luckily, if the history of the other universes is anything to go by, you'll meet most of the demons along the path the Straw Hats take through the Grand Line. You'll still miss some, but defeating all of those should momentarily save the** **world.**"

"Momentarily?"

"**Yeah, well, there'll still be some guys you'll have to defeat two years after the Whitebeard War. ****Anyway, you _must_ save the world, because except for the original plot world, this universe of One Piece is the last one that's still stable. And if it falls to the demons, then the entire multiverse will crumble with it.**"

"And that would be bad," I guessed.

"**Imagine the entire world in chaos,**" Aeso supplied. "**Black holes popping up and swallowing everything. Fires destroying all life in every universe ever created. Wars tearing apart human life that would make every other war in history look like a water balloon fight. You and the Straw Hats are the only people standing in the way of that, and you're the only one who can defeat the demons since you have immortal blood.**"

"Bad," I concluded. "On that happy note... how the hell are we talking even though I'm unconscious?"

He shrugged, his bat wings flapping involuntarily. "**Oh, I just bought a Mindphone from godBay. It allows a god and a demigod to converse as long as the demigod is asleep or unconscious.**"

"Um, godBay?"

"**It's basically eBay for gods,**" he explained.

"The gods have their own eBay?"

"**Yeah, well. It's a crazy world. Anyway, now that you know everything, I'm done** **here.**" Aeso grinned and waved good-bye. "**See ya around, and don't forget to save the world! No pressure!**" The dream (I'd decided to call it a dream, since that was the easiest thing to think about) hazed over momentarily, but then my father hit his palm with his other fist. "**Ah, and one last thing: When you get to Cocoyashi Village, you'll want to consult the oracle goddess, Venticus! She's made her home there and she definitely has something important to tell you. Probably. Well, see ya!**"

"Venticus?" I said, amused. "Is she supposed to be an immortal espresso drink or something?"

Then the forms of our bodies flickered and I don't remember anything after that.

* * *

My eyes snapped open, scaring the hell outta Patty, who I immediately noticed was hovering over me and another limp figure anxiously. Carne was peering over the railing. The sounds of fighting rose up into the air, and I was staring at a beautiful blue sky with only a few clouds skirting across it here and there. My head felt fuzzy, and I knew I'd definitely overdone my battle. I was also slightly wet, even though I'd definitely dried myself off after the battle.

"Yah! Don't scare me like that!" the cook complained. He looked soggy, too.

I glared at him, still not ready to forgive him for mistreating Ghin the other day. "Oh, it's you. Damn chef. Where am I and what's going on?" I looked to the side and blinked as I recognized the pale form lying next to me. "Huh? Ghin?" He was slumped over on the cross-hatched railing next to me.

Patty gulped. "Hey, damn crook, don't flip out on me, okay? All I've been doing is making sure you didn't die from the poison gas."

I blinked. "Poison gas? What poison gas? And what happened to Ghin?"

"Krieg had a poison gas bomb that he blew up. Everyone almost died, but we're all okay somehow. Even Chore Girl. She asked us to take care of you until she won her battle with Krieg. They're still duking it out on the deck below. Oh, and if you're wondering why everything's wet, that bitch destroyed the Fin!"

Ah. That would explain the sounds of fighting. I must not have been out very long.

A feminine shout of "Gum-Gum Bazooka!" rose up, followed by an angry yell. Chefs cheered and pirates gasped in shock. There was the sound of something shattering. Then my vision darkened and I went out like a light again.

When I finally came to - - for good, this time - - I was in a yellowish room, sleeping on a comfortable bed. I had an eerie sense of deja vu, but then a strangled cry of, "Hat! Where's my straw hat?!" broke the moment.

"Lucy?..." I said weakly. My mouth felt like sand paper and my body was felt like someone was sticking a thousand needles into it.

"It's right there, Lucy-chan~" said a smooth, love-choked voice that made me want to kill kittens.

"Sanji!" I growled, sitting up in the bed to glare at the black-clad sous chef. "Don't even think about it, bastard!"

Lucy ignored me, grabbed her hat, and sat it back on its throne. "Ah, right. Thank you so much!"

"Do you feel better?" Sanji cooed. "Are you hurting anywhere? Are you hungry? Are you - -"

"_Shut up!_" I yelled, tic-pulsing. He glared at me.

"Damn bastard. I'm just showing your captain some respect. She deserves it after she won that hard battle against Don Krieg."

"Yeah, well, she doesn't need you swooning all over her, ero-cook!"

"Spaz," he muttered, and sure enough, my eyebrow was twitching. At the irritating name, it twitched even more, and I cursed savagely in my mind.

"You two are funny!" Lucy giggled. "Shishishi!" Then she blinked and looked around. "Eh? Where'd they go? The pirates, I mean."

"Thanks to you, they're gone~"

"Oi," I warned.

The straw hatted captain pointed to herself, surprised. "Me?"

"Ghin said, 'We shall meet again at the Grand Line.'" Sanji continued, smirking, then he looked out the window and lit another cigar. I involuntarily gagged at the thought of smoking. Why would anybody willingly suck in a bunch of smoke? It just wasn't natural.

"Ghin, eh?" Lucy mused. "He told you that?"

"He meant you, baka," I deadpanned.

Pea-brain grinned. "Oh yeah! Since I knocked 'em unconscious and drove 'em away and all, that means I'm off the hook, right? I don't have to work here anymore, do I?"

"Congratulations," said Sanji, sounding a little disappointed, but frankly, I was just glad I wouldn't have to catch any more unwanted sights of Lucy in that French maid getup again.

"But about you- -"

"I'm very sorry, but I'm still now going," he cut her off. She pouted. "I don't want to be a pirate. I'm staying here to be a cook until that baka jiisan acknowledges my cooking skills."

Lucy's straw hat shadowed her expression. "A, so desu ka. I'll give up then."

I blinked. "Wait, you will?" My head was still a bit fuzzy and I couldn't remember whether this was part of the original storyline or not, so I was having a major freak-out moment in my head. Then her hand stretched out and grabbed hold of Sanji's collar, and I released a breath I hadn't realized I'd been holding.

"Your hand hasn't given up yet!" Sanji snapped, struggling against her iron-like grip. Lucy pouted some more and released her small hand.

I got up and walked out of the room we were in, leaning against the railing like Sanji, who was looking out to sea wistfully. "I can't go," he said. "They're all unreliable around here. But I'll go there someday."

Lucy and I exchanged confused glances. "Where?" we asked in unison.

"To the Grand Line."

My Friend the Idiot laughed and stretched over to us. I regarded her jealously. While the rest of us had to walk or run everywhere, all she had to do was stretch her arms a little! It wasn't fair. Anyway, she said: "Then let's go now!"

"Not now."

Out to sea, an ugly black storm cloud skirted across the sky, throwing a shadow over the ever-rolling waves. The air was nice and warm, but still held back a little moisture, and I felt said moisture re-energizing me after my tough battle. Exerting that much effort had hurt me more than I'd realized, and had also worked up an enormous appetite. I wasn't just hungry - - I was _ravenous_.

Sanji grinned and turned to the both of us, suddenly looking less like a perverted ero-cook and more like an innocent little kid, which surprised me. He said, "Oi, have either of you ever heard of the All Blue?"

"Nope," my maybe-captain shrugged.

"What? You haven't?"

I smiled, too. "I've heard the legend," I remarked.

The cook's grin only got wider. "Well, for Lucy, it's a mystical sea that some claim doesn't even exist, but I believe it does! In this sea, fish from the East Blue, West Blue, North Blue, and even the South Blue can be found! All in the same spot! Swimming in harmony with one another!"

"Sounds like I chef's miracle," I put in.

He shook his head. "No, more like a chef's _wonderland_! And it's gotta be somewhere in the Grand Line! So, have you heard of it?"

"You just asked that," Lucy pointed out.

He continued describing the All Blue for us, and I had to admit that it sounded like a pretty cool place. Then I thought of something. That big whale that Brook's old crew befriended followed them from the West Blue into the Grand Line. What if other sea life had accidentally got swept into the Reverse Mountain currents and into the Grand Line like that whale? It was definitely a possibility. And if that was true, that could make the Grand Line itself the All Blue...

A bell rang, interrupting my thought process, which was a bit disappointing. I felt like I might've stumbled onto something there. Patty's voice shouted, "LUNCH TIME, BOYS!"

* * *

That lunch was one of the best meals I ever had. All my favorite foods were there: Stew, stuffed peppers, chocolate pudding, tacos, french fries, potato chips, cucumbers (yeah, I like vegetables too. Sue me), and more. When I left the banquet table, the food I'd piled up on my plate resembled a tower more than a meal.

"Wow, you're really hungry, aren't you, Damon?" a chef eating next to me observed. The clicking of silverware filled the restaurant, along with the happy exclamations of other chefs.

I laughed and stuffed more food down my pipe. "You think I've got a lot, just look at Lucy's!"

I had grabbed the last seat, so Lucy and Sanji were forced to eat on the floor, not the Lucy minded as long as she had food. And food she had. She was inhaling so much food, her stomach was the size of a beach ball and growing.

Lucy said something I couldn't make out because of her enormous mouthful of grub. "What was that, Luce?" I asked her.

She swallowed. "I said, 'They're acting weird.'"

I raised an eyebrow again and speared a few french fries that were drowning in vinegar. "They are?"

Sanji shrugged dismissively. "It's how they always are," he informed us.

I had just inhaled the fries when Patty slammed his fist on the table, nearly making me choke. "Oi, who made this soup?" he demanded, glaring at each of his fellow cooks in turn.

Blondie grinned and sat a little straighter, waving his hand high in the air. "It was me! Me! Pretty good, eh? Today's was even exceptional."

"I could hardly swallow this piece of crap," the big-chinned man taunted, wiping his mouth in disgust. "It's only fit for pigs!" He proceeded to make a big show of spitting on the floor.

Sanji's face was a mask of anger.

I blinked and frowned. I'd had some of the soup earlier and it had been just fine in my book. Lucy just kept eating her meat with a stupid look.

Sanji got to his feet and started insulting Patty, but I ignored them and drowned out the conversation, instead focusing on my scrumptious meal. Then, all around me, the other cooks started shagging on Sanji's soup, too, slamming their spoons down one by one, and I frowned. There was definitely something going on here, but it didn't bother me... So I just went back to my food.

_Yum! Stuffed peppers with sea king meat!_

The thing that really caught my attention was the shattering of a bowl into a thousand pieces.

"Owner!" a bunch of chefs gasped.

Sanji's fist shook. "Jiisan?!"

Zeff, who was standing up with the rest of them, pounded his chest. "What's up with this disgusting soup of yours?" he spat, jabbing his finger at the shattered remains of the empty bowl. "Do you intend to shut this restaurant down or something?"

The future Straw Hat approached his boss and yelled, "Stop kidding around, old fart!" He angrily grabbed Zeff by the collar and shook him. "Tell me what makes my soup and your soup so different! TELL ME!"

"Mine and yours?" The ex-pirate hissed. "DON'T BE SO CONCEITED!"

-WHAM!-

Sanji was walloped across the face and was thrown to the floor, rolling across the blue tiles. The other workers of the Baratie gasped.

"The boss didn't kick him; he punched him..."

Zeff closed his fist and quipped, "You're a hundred years too young to ever compare to me, little eggplant! For I am the man who has cooked on all of the seas, all over the world!"

Sanji got up, and for a second, he was so angry I thought he was gonna start fighting Zeff, which would've been a pretty interesting battle. But then he simply cursed, "Dammit!" and raced out the door, nursing his cheek.

"I'M NO LITTLE EGGPLANT ANYMORE!" his angry cry echoed from outside.

Lucy sipped her soup - - albeit, a bit cautiously because of what the chefs said. Then she set down her bowl and smiled, scooping more into her dish. "Ah! This soup's great!"

"I know so," Zeff sighed.

I blinked. "Eh?" Lucy and I said collectively.

He bent his head. "Sanji's cooking is revered by everyone here."

"It doesn't taste bad at all," commented a square-faced chef.

A rounder one added, "Yeah, it's really well made."

"Man that was scary," a big-nosed guy said, shaking his head. "He was really angry there."

I frowned and took another bite of stuffed pepper. "Then why did you flame on his cooking?"

"If we hadn't pulled this off, he'd never leave."

Zeff sat down in his chair again and folded his arms across his chest. "Say, girl. You say you need a cook on your crew, right? Well, we won't force you or anything but, care to take him with you to the Grand Line?" Lucy blinked. "The Grand Line is what he's always dreamed about," the man went on, smiling.

Patty smirked. "You see, the boss is a real troublemaker."

"I was worried for a second because of your shitty acting," Carne snickered, making his friend explode into laughter.

"Not to mention yours!"

One by one, the chefs called for another helping of soup.

* * *

**COMMERCIAL BREAK!**

* * *

"So, how about it, girl?" Zeff spoke up as the Baratie crew drank their soup. "Will you take him with you?"

"Nope." Lucy said simply.

We all fell over anime-style, even me. "WHAT?" some of the chefs shouted. "Why not?"

The old man stroked his long yellow beard, mystified. "But didn't you say you needed a chef on your ship? Or do you not like the kid?"

Lucy denied that, although a part of me hoped she'd say yes, and the other part wondered why. "No, it's nothing like that. I really want to take him with me, but he said he wants to stay here as a chef, so I can't take him even if you guys insist."

"But you didn't care that Zoro didn't want to go with you," I pointed out. "You still basically blackmailed him."

Her eyes went wide. "EH?! How'd you know that?"

"'Cause I'm a psychic, dumbass."

"Oh, hai."

Zeff frowned thoughtfully. "So what you're saying is, the only way you'll take him is if he says yes himself...?"

Lucy grinned and nodded. "Exactly. Seconds please!"

I regarded her bemusedly. "Shouldn't that be more like fifths?"

Ignoring me, the head chef nodded. "Yes, that's probably best. But that peculiar kid, would he ever just admit that he wants to go with you? Not a chance. He's a stubborn son of a gun."

I swallowed a piece of succulent beef with a deliciously autumn aroma. "And I wonder where he got that from...?"

Zeff chuckled.

"Seconds please!"

I sweatdropped. "Is food all you ever think about, Lucy-chan?"

-SMASH-

Suddenly the west wall caved in on us and we all jumped to our feet, forgetting about our food in shock. What was going on? Had the Krieg Pirates returned, deciding that they wanted revenge on us or something? Then the dust cleared and we saw what had happened: Sanji had been knocked through the doors by a shark with someone in its mouth.

"What's going on?" someone asked, confused.

"Who is that?"

"A merman?"

"He came all the way from Fishman Island just to eat here?"

"Bakas!" Sanji bellowed over the muttering of the chefs as he backed away. "That's clearly someone in a shark's mouth!"

Lucy and I pushed our way through the sea of white shirts and tall hats, and guess who we found in the shark's mouth, covered in green clothes and crying anime tears over a puddle of sea water (which I quickly dried)? Yup, none other than...

"Yosaku?" Lucy announced, a bone sticking out of her mouth.

He gasped raggedly. "Ah, Lucy-aneki!"

"Why are you the only one here? Where's Nami?"

I stared at her in disbelief. "A friend smashes through the doors of a sea restaurant, in the mouth of a shark, and the only thing you say is, 'Why are you the only one here?' Really?"

Once he was dried and warmed up, the first half of the Bounty Hunting Idiots said, "We didn't catch up to her. But from the direction Nami-aneki was headed, we roughly knew her destination."

"Ne? Why didn't you bring her back then?"

I hit her over the head. "Baka. He just said they didn't catch up to her."

He looked away sheepishly. "Well, about that... If her destination really is where we calculated, it'd be a dangerous place. Anyways, we need your help, Lucy-aneki and Damon-aniki. Please come with me!"

He'd hooked her at 'dangerous.' "Yosh! I don't really get it but... I got it!"

"And what sense does that make?" I said, rolling my eyes. "Fine, I'll come along. My father came to me in a dream while I was out and said I needed to go there anyway."

"Eh? How do you know where I mean?" Yosaku frowned.

I shook my head. Do these people have memory problems or something? "I'm a psychic, remember?"

"Ah, hai."

Yosaku, Lucy, and I got up and walked through the demolished wall of the Baratie, but before we got very far, Sanji had lit another cigar and stopped us. "Wait," he said.

Lucy stopped and turned. "Eh?"

There was a pause, then the ero-cook said, "All of us have foolish dreams. I'm gonna do this for my own dream, to find the All Blue.

"Sanji?"

He stepped forward and crossed his arms. "As you wished, I'll go with you. On this 'Road to Pirate Queen.' Allow me to take up the position of cook aboard your ship."

That really caught her attention, and mine as well. A huge wave of relief washed over me. So I hadn't changed things after all. In the restaurant, Patty and Carne looked at each other in shock, obviously flabbergasted that Sanji had admitted he'd wanted to go.

"You got a problem with that or what?"

Lucy's face lit up and she started doing this stupid dance that I'm not even gonna describe. I don't want to burn your eyeballs out of their sockets or anything. "YATTA!" she cheered, which I somehow knew was Japanese for 'I did it!' "I got a new crewmember!"

"Isn't this great, Lucy-aneki?" Yosaku laughed. She nodded and they jumped around, singing, "Yay! Yay! We've got our cook! We'll always have something to eat now!"

I raised an eyebrow. "_We_? You're not a member of the crew, Yosaku."

Sanji smirked and turned to his ex-coworkers. "So, that's it, people. I gave you a lot of trouble, didn't I?"

"You really piss me off... I wanted to throw you out of here myself, but now things turn out to be so easy!" Patty complained, folding his arms across his navy blue shirt.

The Boy Blunder shrugged. "Well, gomen... That's what you get for putting on such an appalling performance."

"N-NANI!? You figured us out?!"

"You couldn't be more transparent. You're all bakas."

I looked at him pointedly. "Judging by the fact that Yosaku and the shark pushed you in the restaurant with you," I said calmly, "you were probably just eavesdropping."

His face reddened. "Why, you...!"

Patty ignored me and spit like a cat at the insult. "EH?!"

Sanji shrugged. "So you guys really want me outta here, ne? Baka jiisan?"

The big-chinned underling chef shook his fist angrily. "What's with that foul mouth of yours?!" He probably would've said more, but Zeff cut him off with a hand held up to Patty's chest.

"That's right," Grandpa Chef remarked, "you little eggplant. I hate kids! I regret every passing day that I let you live, ungrateful kid."

The 'kid' in question snorted. "Heh. That's alright, baka jiisan. Now you can just sit back and relax for the rest of your old life."

After all that was over, Zeff supplied us with a small boat to take.

"Whoa! What a nice boat!" Yosaku approved. "You sure it's alright to take this with us?"

"It's Sanji's, so of course you can." a chef replied.

I had already boarded it and was lying against the railing with my hands folded behind my back, relaxing now that all the action was finally done (for now) and my belly was full of food. I felt warm and sleepy, despite the fact that I'd been conked out for at least two hours. My headache was also starting to fade, and the pins-and-needles feeling that had plagued me for the last few hours was gone too. Lucy was busy gathering some rations (probably a Santa-Claus-sized bagful of meat) and Yosaku was examining our vessel excitedly. Sanji was packing up his things, which reminded me: The next time I had belli, I needed to go shopping. If I was going to be a pirate, and by this time I was seriously considering joining the Straw Hats, I would need to look the part. But no matter what, I'd still keep my leather jacket. That thing was like a good luck charm to me, the only thing I owned that Cracked-Up Kane gave me. Even if he _had_ stolen it.

Eventually, Lucy returned with an enormous canvas sack full of what smelled like wolf bait, and she and Yosaku boarded the ship. The other chefs had all gathered on the deck near Sanji's boat to see us off. After a few minutes, Yosaku muttered, "Cook-aniki's pretty slow, isn't he?"

Lucy agreed.

"Bakas." I admonished. "This restaurant was his only home for more than half of his life! He's probably taking one last look around the place."

A few more minutes of waiting, and then Sanji finally stepped out of the restaurant, lugging his stuff. The cooks opened up a pathway from the demolished entrance to the ship. His face was blank, but his eyes looked a bit sad to me.

Ah, peace...

"THIS IS THE FURY THAT I'VE ACCUMULATED OVER THE YEARS!" Patty yelled, jumping from the second story deck down to this one and raising his weapon, while next to him, Carne did the same thing with his own taunt.

I sighed. I should've realized by now that I'd never get any peace in this world.

Sanji jumped back and did a handstand, lashing out with two powerful kicks at the same time, effectively dodging Patty and Carne while delivering his own attacks.

-POW! POW!-

The two idiot chefs went down in a tumble with smoking skulls.

One cook knelt down next to them and shook his head. "You'll never beat him, ya know."

I snickered.

Sanji made his way though the chefs and to the edge of the deck, then dropped his bag into our ship. "C'mon," he said. "Let's go."

"You sure?" Lucy blinked. "No goodbyes?"

He smiled. "Nah."

The teen had just lifted his foot to step into the boat when Zeff called from the third floor, "Sanji!" His eyes widened and he froze. "Don't catch cold now..."

The chef's face twitched, and his eyes watered. Johnny, Lucy, and I grinned. Tears rolled down Sanji's face, and he turned and knelt low, crying "OWNER ZEFF! After all this time... I owe you a hell of a lot! What you've done for me, I shall _never_ forget!"

Carne pounded his fist, tears pouring out of his eyes, too, and Patty complained through eye leakage, "You damn bastard! I'M GONNA MISS YOU, DAMMIT!"

"GONNA MISS YOU, ALRIGHT!" Carne wailed.

The other chefs tried, and mostly failed, to hold back tears as well. "This is so sad!" they moaned. "I'm so sad, damnit!"

"You bakas!" said Zeff, wiping his own eyes, wearing a sad smile on his face. "Men should leave without a final word!"

"LET'S GO!" cheered Lucy, leaping up and throwing her arms out.

I tic-pulsed, holding back the waterworks. "Lucy, you baka! Read the situation, dammit!"

"Until we meet again, you freakin' bastards!" Sanji cried, jumping into the ship and smiling.

The Fighting Cooks of the Baratie roared and waved their arms as we set sail. Despite everything they'd all said about Sanji, I knew each and everyone of them loved him like a brother. And as the floating restaurant shrunk to a dot on the horizon and we waved our goodbyes, I couldn't help but feel a bit jealous of Sanji. I wondered what it would be like to have a brother, or even a family. I'd been pretty much alone for so along that I'd forgotten what it felt like...

* * *

Miles ahead of Damon, Lucy, Johnny, and Sanji, the small caravel with the straw-hatted jolly roger approached the green island. A Japanese style tower rose near the shore and thew a long shadow out to sea. The single, redheaded passenger aboard the ship hefted her tan backpack and narrowed her eyes.

Her long journey was almost over.

Freedom was in her grasp. Now if only she knew what that strange old woman in the purple cloak, who had arrived here years ago, was after...

* * *

**And that's chapter 9 finished! Pretty epic ending there, eh? And yes, the old woman is an OC that'll give pretty important information to Damon. But man, was this chapter long! I think I need an aspirin, 'cause my fingers are freakin' BURNING! 5,400+ words, man!  
**

Damon: Why is the oracle goddess named after an espresso drink?

?: THAT'S NOT IT, DAMMIT! IT'S JUST MY NAME!

Damon: Whu - - WHO THE HELL ARE YOU?!

Lucy: Ah! Intruder! ...Do you have meat?

Damon: ENOUGH WITH THE MEAT ALREADY, BAKA!

Sanji: Don't shout at ladies, shit-psychic!

Damon: What was that, ero-cook?! You're even worse than that shit-swordsman!

Zoro: *sneezes*

Johnny: I think someone's talking about you...

**-TheRealEvanSG**


	10. No 10: Swimming Cows and Flying Ships!

**Chapter 10 is here! Again, thank you all for your continued support on my series! This fanfiction will get much more exciting and in-depth, so for all you new readers, don't worry!**

Damon: Yeah, and I'm awesome, so don't forget to add this story to your follow/favorites list!

If your head was any bigger, we could use it as a hot air balloon.

Damon: Aaaaand you just stole that from the 39 Clues.

Shh! Don't tell everyone!

**Chapter start!**

* * *

Giant Swimming Cows, Terrible Art, and Flying Ships

The Most Wicked Man of East Blue, Arlong!  


* * *

**Previously on ****One Piece: Full Blast **

_"__**Imagine the entire world in chaos,**__" Aeso supplied. "__**Black holes popping up and swallowing everything. Fires destroying all life in every universe ever created. Wars tearing apart human life that would make every other war in history look like a water balloon fight. You and the Straw Hats are the only people standing in the way of that, and you're the only one who can defeat the demons since you have immortal blood.**__"_

_"Bad," I concluded. "On that happy note... how the hell are we talking even though I'm unconscious?"_

**also...**

_"Until we meet again, you freakin' bastards!" Sanji cried, jumping into the ship and smiling._

_The Fighting Cooks of the Baratie roared and waved their arms as we set sail. Despite everything they'd all said about Sanji, I knew each and everyone of them loved him like a brother. And as the floating restaurant shrunk to a dot on the horizon and we waved our goodbyes, I couldn't help but feel a bit jealous of Sanji. I wondered what it would be like to have a brother, or even a family. I'd been pretty much alone for so along that I'd forgotten what it felt like..._

Another day passed, and I was starting to get a little bored. After the fight at the Baratie, my thirst for fighting (as much as I'd like to say I don't have any since I'm a Christian, I do) had been quenched, but now I was looking forward to our arrival at Nami's home island, the Conomi Islands. And by the way Lucy was pacing around the ship, I knew that I wasn't the only one who felt that way.

The straw-hatted girl sat at the front of the ship, smiling. She asked, "So will we be there soon? The island where Nami's at?"

Yosaku, who was sitting next to me on the bench around the single cabin, slapped his knee. "You're too naive!" he accused. "Way too naive! We're getting closer and closer to Arlong's base! When we docked at the Baratie, Nami-aneki's eyes were fixed on Arlong's bounty poster. I'm sure of it. Things aren't as simply as they seem," he said darkly, pointing at Lucy for emphasis.

Seagulls called overhead, following our ship as if to guide us to the Conomi Islands. It's kinda weird how similar Nami's homeland and her name sounded... CURSE MY ADHD!

The green-clothed bounty hunter gripped his knees, bending over. "Nami-aneki wants to take that 20 million belli bounty that's on Arlong's head! While we're taking it easy here, she could, for all we know, have already snuck into his base, Arlong Park!"

Everybody except me had been ignoring him. Lucy yawned and asked Sanji when lunch was, and he grinned. "I'll get on it soon."

Yosaku cried anime tears, stood up straight, and spat at us: "HAVEN'T YOU EVER HEARD OF ARLONG!?"

Sanji looked at him confusedly. "Arlong? Who's that?"

"Never heard of him," Lucy agreed.

"Isn't he that fish stick guy?" I piped up.

The poor guy turned blue and yelped, "Don't call Arlong that! You never know when he's listening, or has his subordinates listening!" He shivered, then rounded on Lucy and Sanji and blew a whistle. ...Where'd he get a whistle from? ANYWAY, he continued. "Yosh, guess I'll have to explain Arlong to you bakas!" He started pacing back and forth, copying Lucy from earlier. "Arlong is a merman who has already been to the Grand Line."

Sanji was skeptic. "A merman?"

"A merman, eh..." Lucy repeated.

"An echo?" I remarked blankly. The other two snickered.

"I've never seen one before."

"I haven't, either," I admitted. "At least, not in real life. In my vision they were ugly bastards, though..."

Sanji's eyes - - or rather, eye, since his left one was hidden under his blonde hair - - suddenly and inexplicably turned heart-shaped and he rubbed a non-existent beard. "Come to think of it, I've heard that there's a merman island somewhere on the Grand Line. And that there are lots of beautiful mermaids there!"

"Never do that heart-eyes thing again," I deadpanned. "And by the way, it's called Fishman Island."

Lucy sketched out a drawing on a pad of paper. I blinked. Where had the paper come from? Was a hammerspace at work here or something? Whatever the case, she showed us the picture and asked, "Those merman, do they look anything like this?"

There was a few seconds of absolute silence, save for the omnipresent rolling of the waves. Then Sanji and I burst into laughter. Lucy had drawn an absolutely abominable fish with padded human feet, and it was hilarious! I nearly choked, I was laughing so hard!

"That's a masterpiece you got there!" our newest cook approved, snickering.

"COULDN'T YOU GUYS BE MORE SERIOUS HERE?!" Yosaku erupted, resembling Nami way too much all of the sudden. He sat back down and lifted a finger while we all looked at him, smothering our laughter. "Fine, I'll start again at the top!" he said. "The reason why the Grand Line is called the Graveyard of Pirates is because there are three superpowers that reign supreme there. One of them is the Shichibukai, otherwise known as the Seven Warlords."

"Shichibukai?" Lucy repeated.

I grinned. "There's a serious echo guys," I said, making Lucy and Sanji snicker again.

"PAY ATTENTION! Anyway, in plain terms, the Shichibukai are seven pirates who have been acknowledged by the World Government."

Sanji raised an eyebrow. "Eh? What does that mean?"

"They're given immunity from arrest," I put in, "and in return, the World Government can order them to do stuff like take down pirates and Revolutionary ships and stuff. Also, they're forbidden from searching for the One Piece. It works for the World Government, too, because they get a fixed percentage of all other treasure found or stolen by the Shichibukai."

Sanji nodded. "Ah. That makes sense. But it's kinda stupid that pirates would be government dogs."

"Not really." I shook my head. "They can't get arrested and thrown in jail, or get killed by the World Government. They can sail the seas and sow fear into people's hearts without getting arrested, so to them, it's just fine."

"To other pirates," Yosaku agreed, "they're just bastard government dogs, but they're really powerful! The man who defeated Zoro, Hawk-Eyes Mihawk, is one of them."

Lucy clapped her feet together excitedly. "WHOA, really?! I can't wait to meet these guys! There are really seven with his power? The Shichibukai are really something!"

"Among the Shichibukai is a merman, Jinbei, who's the captain of a merman crew. And the guy who fought alongside Jinbei in the Grand Line, is the most wicked, devastating pirate... Arlong!"

Lucy pulled out her pad of paper again and her pencil danced across a new page. "You mean, kinda like this?" Now it was the same fish, just standing on two of the legs and using the other two as arms.

Sanji and I busted up. Yosaku was unamused and fumed, "JUST TAKE IT SERIOUSLY! PLEASE! As I was saying, Ever since Arlong came to the East Blue years ago, he's caused mass mayhem and chaos. He's literally overturned 20 villages! His power is far beyond that of Don Krieg, who compared to him is nothing but a kid!"

The cook frowned. "So then why would Nami-san run off to battle someone like that alone?"

"As I said, she's after the bounty on Arlong's head," the bounty hunter said.

"Or she could have other business with him that she didn't want us knowing about," I pointed out. "Like maybe one of the villages that got destroyed was hers."

"True..."

Sanji's face lit up. "Or maybe she's actually a mermaid! I mean, she's totally cute and gorgeous..."

Lucy flipped to another page and sketched out a third drawing, a copy of the previous one except with long eyelashes and hair. "Then she'd look like this."

"DO YOU HAVE A DEATH WISH!?"

"DON'T YOU GUYS UNDERSTAND WHAT I'M TRYING TO SAY, HERE?" Yosaku exploded.

"Yeah, that they're really strong mermen, right?" Lucy summed up. "I get the picture."

"But the ones you draw are terrible," I snickered.

"No, you don't understand!" Yosaku moaned. "You have no idea how powerful these mermen really are, not even you, Damon, and you should since you're a psychic!"

Lucy shrugged, unmoved. "We'll find out when we get there, so don't worry."

Sanji stretched, got up, straightened his tie, and announced, "Yosh! It's time for lunch."

"Right on!" the captain of the Straw Hats cheered. "Lunchtime!"

"Better have lemonade," I said pointedly.

Even Yosaku was brought out of his funk. "Lunch?!"

"Whaddya guys want?"

"MEAT! LOTS AND LOTS OF MEAT! On the bone, preferably."

Yosaku jumped up. "I want fried beans!"

"Stuffed peppers with sea king meat!" I ordered.

"Yosh... leave it to me." The cleanly dressed cook on our crew got up and headed for the kitchen, muttering recipes to himself. "I'll make it in a jiffy!"

"Having a chef onboard sure is great!" Lucy giggled, licking her lips in anticipation.

I nodded eagerly. "You're telling me!"

Yosaku poked around and peered inside the kitchen to watch Sanji make the meal. "Yeah!"

"Meat! I want a big chunk of it!"

"Hai, Lucy-CHAWN~!"

"I want a big bowl of mine, too!"

"Give me the biggest pepper you can find!"

"SHUT IT, YOU BASTARDS!"

* * *

As the hour dragged on at a snail's pace, the day got warmer and warmer and I got border and border. I was itching for a fight. I felt a huge rush of adrenaline or something like that, and I was feeling very energized indeed. Steam billowed up to the sky from the venting in the kitchen. Sanji was just about done with lunch, something I was glad for. At least eating those glorious stuffed peppers would distract me from my inactivity.

We sailed past a reef and I suddenly got a cold feeling. Something wasn't right. The sea was getting disturbed. I shivered and glanced about, but nothing was happening. I shrugged and wrote it off as jest nerves, but I still didn't let my guard down.

Then Sanji finally brought out the food, and I forgot my worries. I very nearly cried. The wonderful aroma itself was enough to make me think I'd died and gone to heaven, and the taste! Oh, the taste was indescribably good! Besides my peppers, he'd also laid out fried rice mixed with other vegetables and my lemonade, and the lemonade tasted like _real_ _lemons_. It had exactly the right amount of sugar, a perfectly balanced scale of sour and sweet. The stuffed peppers were slightly spicy, but the heat was evened out with a touch of... something I couldn't quite put a finger on. Whatever the case, my respect for Sanji was definitely renewed. My one lunch today was better than all of the meals I'd had at the Baratie combined, which was truly saying something. I was finished with one pepper, a bowl of rice, and a glass of lemonade before I came up for air.

Lucy was so pleased she was literally shoving her plate into her mouth and bringing out shiny-clean, almost making me squirt lemonade out my nose from laughter. Yosaku had inhaled three plates of fried beans before he remembered how to breathe.

"Nothing less from Sanji-san!" Yosaku said as the object of his approval grinned and stirred a glass of red wine. "This is divine!"

Sanji shrugged. "I don't care about you guys, I just want to be able to cook for Nami-san as soon as possible." He took a sip of his wine indifferently, but I could tell he was pleased.

The green-cloaked swordsman nodded eagerly. "It'd be great if we could all dine together again!"

"Yeah!" I agreed. "We'll get her back, no problem. Just you wait, Yosaku-san! The Straw Hats shall be reunited once again!"

Lucy gnawed the meat clear off the bone, reminding me of a wolf. "Yeah! 'Cuz she's our navigator! She'll be going to the Grand Line with us!"

"About that," I spoke up, pausing from my meal. Everyone blinked and looked at me, confused. "Lucy, I have this quest I have to go on. The main reason I didn't want to join your crew was because I didn't know how dangerous it'd be, and I didn't know where it'd take me. I still don't know for sure, but after my dad talked to me yesterday when I was out cold, I realized that I'd probably have to go to the Grand Line. And even though I'm a demigod, there's no way I could be able to survive the Grand Line on my own."

Lucy shrugged nonchalantly. "Yeah. So?"

"Well..." I looked down, grinning weakly. "I know it's pretty freaky, me being half-human and all... I still haven't really gotten over it myself. I only found out about a week or so ago. But still... Lucy-chan, would you accept me as a crewmate?"

There was a pregnant pause, and I thought I'd blown it for a second. I sighed sadly, thinking that was that, but then Lucy broke into a grin so wide I knew it was only possible because she had rubber powers.

"Hontou?" She giggled excitedly. "You wanna join?"

I blinked and raised an eyebrow. "Well, yeah."

"SUGOI! You're on! Hahahaha! I've got Damon!"

I blushed and looked down again, embarrassed by her eagerness. "You don't have to be so excited about it," I mumbled, but she was cheerily ignoring me, instead attacking her meal with renewed energy.

Yosaku blinked. "Wait, you mean you weren't a member before today, Damon-aniki?"

"Nope."

Lucy reached for a bone of meat at the center of the table, but Yosaku suddenly swiped it away from her, making her jaw drop. "Oi, that's mine!"

He ripped a chunk off of it. "But you just had one!"

Sanji was glaring at me, and I raised an eyebrow. "What's your problem?"

"IF YOU TRY ANYTHING TO NAMI-SWAN OR LUCY-CHWAN," he roared, eyes rolled back and teeth like a shark's, "THEN YOU'RE IN FOR A WORLD OF HURT, YOU HEAR ME?! I'LL KICK YOU INTO NEXT WEEK!"

I sweatdropped. "Sheesh, I'm not gonna do anything, baka."

He took another swig of wine, suddenly calm again. "Right. Good."

I slapped my forehead while Lucy giggled. Then her jaw dropped again and she glared at Yosaku, who backed away a little. "Oi! Give me my meat back!"

"But you just had one," he repeated.

"But it's mine!"

The morons started chasing each other around the kitchen while I double sweatdropped and Sanji poured himself more wine. Then the ship started shaking and I spilled my lemonade all over my black leather jacket and Pac-Man shirt, making me aim a Hawk Blast at the passing bounty hunter's face, glaring at him dangerously. He was thrown into the wall of the kitchen and he came out of the dust cloud, blue and shivering.

"STOP MAKING THE SHIP SHAKE, DAMMIT!" I exploded. "IF MY JACKET'S RUINED, THERE'S GONNA BE HELL TO PAY!"

Sanji was unamused as well. "I ALMOST WASTED SOME FINE WINE!"

Lucy stopped short and giggled. "You guys are funny!"

"And _you_!" I fumed, getting ready to punch some sense into my rubbery captain, but just then I sensed something absolutely HUGE under our ship and my fist uncurled in shock. I turned blue.

Yosaku blinked. "Eh?... Damon-san? Are you alright?"

I glanced around nervously. Why was the sea so dark until a hundred feet starboard? What was that cold feeling I'd just gotten? It was the same one as before, at the reef... "Do you guys see that?" I said, motioning towards the sea.

Lucy and Yosaku blinked. "Eh? See what?"

Sanji looked out over the ocean. "Yeah, the sea's all dark." We glanced at each other and said in unison, "Something's beneath us."

Sanji and I peered into the sea. I swallowed nervously. Whatever it was, it was large enough to cast a hundred-foot shadow! At least 100 feet by my estimates. I examined my new crewmates. Lucy looked excited to meet whatever was gonna surface, and I resisted the urge to knock some common sense into her. Only Usopp had a natural reaction. He was looking at the ocean and sweating bullets.

Suddenly...

-FWOOM!-

The thing following our ship veered out to the left and surfaced, sending a giant wave up that we swept down, screaming in surprise. My senses were tingling, and something was telling me that they were connected to the sea's disturbance. As we hit the bottom of the wave and splashed out to sea, water falling around us like rain, struggling to maintain our balance while Lucy laughed and whooped like an idiot, I grabbed the table (our dishes and leftovers had been thrown haphazardly across Sanji's ship in organized chaos) and closed my eyes, projecting my thoughts into the sea as I'd been training myself to do since I'd sort-of come to terms with being a demigod.

The sea calmed, somewhat, and when the ship had finally stopped threatening to capsize, we all saw what had very nearly ended our adventure: A FREAKIN' GIANT FISH THING THAT LOOKED LIKE A FREAKIN' BULL AND EVEN HAD A FREAKIN' RING AROUND ITS FREAKIN' NOSE!

My jaw dropped and I paled at the sheer size of the creature. It had a stupid look on its face and at second glance looked a bit ridiculous, like a cow-fish nightmare baby, but it was _at least_ TWICE the size of Arlong's flagship and ALIVE. How something like this could even be possible blew my mind at first, but then I remembered I was in the One Piece world. On the Grand Line, things like this were sighted on a daily basis.

Not that the thought made me feel any better.

Abruptly, I felt like I could understand Usopp's cowardice just a bit better.

"WHAT IS THAT THING?!" I yelped, quickly backing up to the edge of the ship and stabbing a shaking finger at it. I felt like an ant looking up at a giant!

Yosaku let out a very unmanly scream and cried anime tears. "A M-M-MONSTER!"

"You're telling me!" I gasped.

Lucy ran forward and grabbed the railing closest to the beast. "It's a cow!" she announced. "And it's humongous!"

"SAYING IT'S HUMONGOUS IS LIKE SAYING THE SKY IS BLUE OR THAT GRASS IS GREEN!"

Our cook took his cigar out of his mouth and regarded it blankly. "A cow? Swimming?" he deadpanned. "It's more likely a hippo."

"No way is that thing a hippo!" I shot back. "Hippos are silver-colored, NOT scaly, and do NOT have nose rings or fins!"

"Good point."

"But why is that thing here in the East Blue?!" Yosaku shrieked. "This kind of creature should only be at the Grand Line!"

Said creature gave a deep rumble and bent its enormous head down to look at us. The pupils of its eyes were as big as my head, but that wasn't the part that shocked me. The thing that surprised me was when it rumbled... I could understand it.

"It says its hungry." I blinked.

Sanji wheeled around and looked at me wide-eyed. "You can understand that thing?"

It grumbled again and gave a moo-like moan. I sweatdropped and asked the cook, "Eh, yes, I can understand it. You want the translation without the cursing, or cursing included?" For whatever it was, it had an extremely dirty mouth. My old freshman language arts teacher woulda washed my mouth out with a bar of soup for saying an eighth of what the big guy had said.

"Ah... cursing excluded, please."

"'I'm not a monster, baka. I'm a sea bull. Give me food or I'll sink your ship, even if you have a child of Master Aeso with you.' He says."

Yosaku shivered. "That's one mad cow."

Lucy erupted in a fit of giggles. "The cow thinks he can sink us? He's hilarious! Shishishi!" Then suddenly she gasped as she realized something and gave the cow a death glare. "EH?! YOU WANT OUR FOOD!? GUM-GUM PISTOL!" Her arm stretched out, causing my eyes to widen since until now I'd never really seen her rubberiness in action, and slammed into the sea bull's face.

-POW!-

"Whoa, that was pretty awesome!" I gasped. Then I glared angrily and tic-pulsed. "EH? Wait a minute, what are you doing?! The poor thing's hungry! Let's feed it instead of hitting it!"

This time I didn't bother resisting the urge to hit her or Yosaku, who was cheering her on.

-WHACK! WHACK!-

"But it was trying to touch my food~" she protested childishly.

-FWOOM!-

The sea bull had smashed into the sea, throwing droplets of displaced water high up into the air, creating a rainbow, and lifting another wave up from the watery depths. Gritting my teeth in annoyance, I once again sent my thoughts into the ocean, soothing it with calming commands like,_ Nice, sleepy ocean. Don't sink our ship. That'd be bad. Have a nap instead. Nice ocean..._

Hey, it works! What's that look for?

Anyway, a second later, the ocean was disrupted _again_ and the sea bull erupted up from the waves, growling angrily and letting out a bone-rattling moo. I paled, tried to calm the sea, and told my new captain shakily, "Uh, L-L-Luce? You _might_ want t-t-to give it some food. It's really angry. It just c-c-cussed you out 50 times."

"In one moo? Sugoi..."

"HE'S GONE BERSERK NOW!" Yosaku yelped.

I gave both of them my best I'll-kill-you-if-we-ever-come-out-of-this-alive stare. "This never would've happened if you kuso-bakas would've just GIVEN IT A FEW FREAKIN' CHUNKS OF MEAT!"

The bounty hunter cried anime tears. "Gomendasai, Damon-aniki..."

"IT'S HIM YOU SHOULD APOLOGIZE TO!"

"Gomendasai, Cow-kun..."

The sea bull from the Grand Line rumbled, a little less angrily this time. And when I say less angrily, it only cussed about twenty times.

"'My name's not Cow-kun," I translated, leaving out the cussing. "It's Mohmoo, and I'm a SEA BULL! Give me food.' ...He says."

"You want another?" Lucy threatened.

"DO YOU HAVE A DEATH WISH?" I fumed.

Sanji looked like he wanted to kick her, but he managed to restrain himself since Lucy was a lady. "Baka." he admonished. "Don't beat up hungry people."

"It's a cow, not a person!"

"It's a bull, not a cow," I returned, while the cow eyed us reproachfully.

"Maybe he can't find something to eat because of an injury or something," Sanji mused, and I nodded my agreement.

"Is that it?" I asked the cow kindly, and the cook grinned at it.

"What compassion," Yosaku remarked blandly, unmoved.

We offered it a plate of meat that we picked up from the ship floor, and I even sacrificed one of the stuffed peppers that I'd managed to save, and the cow sniffed the food suspiciously. Then it opened its mouth impossibly wide, and my own jaw dropped at just how huge its maw was - - then Sanji suddenly kicked it, looking like Nami when she got angry.

"GO TO HELL!" he told it.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!" Yosaku and I demanded. "WHERE'S THE LOVE ALL OF A SUDDEN?"

"That thing was gonna munch on me, too." he said calmly, smoking a cigarette.

"Bastards," I mumbled, calming the sea YET AGAIN. "You guys keep making me have to keep the waves from overturning the ship. This ain't easy, ya know. Plus I DROPPED MY STUFFED PEPPER IN THE FREAKIN' OCEAN!"

He turned to me and raised an eyebrow. "So? You're a demigod of the sea. You could just summon it out and dry it."

"...True."

The sea bull Mohmoo ripped through the water at our ship, snarling and hissing up a fit, and I sighed. "Okay, since you two demons have attacked it already, I guess its my turn now. As wrong as this feels since it's a creature of the sea..." I jumped into the sea while Yosaku gasped. I willed it to support me and landed on it lightly, then bent my knees, building up pressure beneath my feet. I aimed myself at the approaching cow. "TEMPEST ROCKET!"

I was propelled forward with so much force it felt like my face was peeling off; _not_ a pleasant feeling.

"TEMPEST BOXING!" I roared, and as I soared through the air at the angry sea bull, water rose up to wrap itself around my arms and fists. I landed on the creature's snout, slowing down its charge a little and bending its neck back. I cocked my arms back, then proceeded to land a series of devastating punches on its nose. As the attacks rained down, throwing droplets of water everywhere, my crewmates and Yosaku cheered me on. I let out a battle cry and a final, powerful blow rained down on it. It's eyes nearly popped out of its head and it was thrown back into the sea, while I kept the waves from getting to big and blasted myself back to our ship.

"That was awesome!" Lucy approved, grinning widely. "Now let's go back to our meal!" She gathered everything up and I cleaned it all of with water from the atmosphere (which for some reason, didn't tire me as much as it did the other day), and we returned to the food like nothing had even happened.

I heard Yosaku mutter, "These guys are crazy..."

I blinked in surprise. Had I been included in the crazy category? I didn't think I was all that powerful compared to the average pirate in this world...

Huh.

* * *

We had just about finished up with our lunch, which was growing uncomfortably cold, when the sea bull came up again, this time sporting an extraordinary amount of bruises on its muzzle. I stared in fascination. Had I really done all that? Mohmoo mooed again and I managed to calm it down, give it some of my food without getting eaten, and in the meantime Lucy sneakily put ropes around its horns with her Gum-Gum powers, which were both awesome and kinda freaky.

And that was how we found ourselves heading towards the Conomi Islands at top speed.

Finally, the coastline of my first One Piece island came into existence on the horizon, a massive Japanese-style tower visible even from here. Nami's homeland looked peaceful enough from the sea. Palm trees covered the island, and birds rose up from the forests in flocks.

"Are you sure that's Arlong's base?" I muttered to Yosaku. "Mohmoo didn't take us to the wrong place, did he?"

Mohmoo grumbled in annoyance.

"What's he say?" Sanji asked me.

I blushed and glared at the sea bull. "I AM _NOT_ A GANGSTER, EVEN IF I _DO _WEAR A LEATHER JACKET! I hate those guys!" My gaze softened a little. "And sorry for doubting you."

Lucy grinned. "Hey guys, I see the island!"

"Good job, Sherlock." I deadpanned. "It's been visible for the past fifteen minutes."

"Lucy-aneki!" Yosaku called from the top of the kitchen, where he was perched. "Arlong Park has been sighted, dead ahead!"

She pumped her fist. "YOSH! Arlong Park, here we come!"

I was starting to grow antsy. If my timing was right, then at about this time, Usopp had been captured and was at Arlong Park, while Zoro was either heading for Cocoyashi Village with Hatchi-Hatchan or was running to the fishman base himself. I frowned and tried to remember how Luffy and his crew had originally ended up on Conomi Island. Something about the ship smashing a boulder on the land?... But that didn't make sense...

We crept closer and closer to Arlong Park and I tensed up. Something wasn't right. I could feel it. We were off timing.

Then, suddenly, Lucy called out, "Oo! Guys, I can see it! Arlong Park is right there!"

I looked up from my musings in shock. Sure enough, the lair of Arlong sat straight in front us, maybe half a mile ahead. I made out red cobblestone roofs; tan or yellow walls, I couldn't really tell; a brick fence around the place; and two oaken doors leading straight into it. I felt a cold feeling in the back of my neck, and I frowned. It wasn't like the feeling I'd got when we passed the reef Mohmoo had been sleeping next to; it was more like a premonition of danger, a warning of a tough battle to come. I adjusted my leather jacket nervously.

Mohmoo grumbled.

"'I need a rest.' ...He says," I translated.

Lucy pounded her foot on the front of the ship. "Don't get tired, you bull!"

"It has to be that Damon-aniki's punches affected it too much," Yosaku mused.

I frowned and muttered, "I didn't hit him _that_ hard..."

The sea bull started swimming, dizzy, to the right, and Lucy was unhappy. She ordered it to go left, but the exhausted creature ignored her and continued on its broken course. The poor thing was so tired that it veered completely out of sight of Arlong Park, and then I saw something that made me pale.

"Uh, Mohmoo!" I shouted over the roar of the waves that rushed past him. "You may wanna stop!"

Too late.

-SMASH!-

He smacked against a coral reef and with a feeling of sudden weightlessness, we were flung, ship and all, into the air. My body may have traveled with the ship, but my stomach was left with Mohmoo. It was times like this when I hated Newton's Law of Inertia... We were flung out of a huge geyser of water that had resulted from Mohmoo's crashing, and with varied yells of fear (or in Lucy's case, glee), we soared over Conomi Island.

"NOT GOOD!" Yosaku shrieked.

I was crying anime tears and was holding onto the table, which luckily had been screwed into the ship, for dear life. "AGAIN, YOU SAYING THIS ISN'T GOOD IS LIKE SAYING THE SKY IS BLUE OR THAT GRASS IS GREEN! AND IF SOMEONE DOESN'T DO SOMETHING, WE'RE GONNA SMASH INTO FREAKIN' PIECES AND TURN INTO FREAKIN' PANCAKES ON THAT GREEN GRASS!"

"It's just like flying in the sky!" Lucy cheered.

Sanji freaked, "It's not 'like'! It really is flying, you - -"

Whatever Lucy was, we never found out, because just then the local bounty hunter yelped, "NO! WE'RE NOT FLYING, WE'RE FALLING!"

With an almighty crash that could've woken the dead, we smashed into the ground and tore across the landscape of the island. It was so bumpy that if I hadn't had my mouth closed, I'd be missing my tongue. As it was, I felt like I'd broken every bone in my body. How I survived that, I'll never know to this day.

"Landing complete!" Lucy announced. She leaned forward. "Oh? Hey, Zoro! Zoro!"

A horrified yell of disbelief rose up into the air along with a nasty SMACK.

We pushed out of the forest that we'd been tearing apart and shredded a field of marshes. Up ahead, a reddish mound of rock jutted out of the ground like the hand of a giant, though at the time it resembled a death sentence.

-SMASH!-

The ship collided with the rock mound, and the result was most definitely not pretty. Sanji's boat was reduced to little more than litter, timber, and nails, and we were thrown in different directions. My body felt like someone had tossed me in a washing machine, thrown me to a pack of blood-thirsty ninjas, and then forced me to walk on hot coals. But I was alive, somehow.

"Luce," I groaned in pain, "if I don't die, I'm gonna kill you. And if I do die, I will haunt you until you're dead."

She ignored me, simply dusting off her hat instead and saying, "We've arrived! We've arrived!"

"You bitch..." a familiar voice hissed. "What do you think you're doing?" A pile of timbers was pushed out of the way and Zoro popped up, giving us a glare so angry I couldn't help but shiver. He was covered in bandages from his fight with Mihawk and he was now wearing a dark blue, flowery Hawaiian shirt that was very un-Zoro.

"What do you mean?" asked Lucy, attending to her trademark red vest and short blue jeans now that her hat was safe. Her long, black hair was messy from the force of the wind we'd encountered while flying. "We've come to get Nami back. Still haven't found her? Oh yeah. And where are Usopp and Johnny?"

"Permission to kill, first mate?" I mumbled.

He smirked dangerously. "Granted." Then he blinked. "Wait, Usopp? Oh yeah, that's right! Guys, this isn't the time! Usopp's been - -"

"Captured by Arlong?" I offered. "Yeah, I know, although these idiots don't because I never got a chance to tell them. But don't worry, he'll be fine. If there's one thing that idiot's good at, it's running away."

"He's dead!" a voice said.

I looked down the path we'd carved into the countryside. Standing there was Johnny in his blue jacket, purple undershirt, and jeans. "It's too late. Usopp-aniki is dead!"

My eyes widened. No way could Usopp be dead! As annoying as he was, he was one of us! One of the good guys! One of the members of the crew destined to find the One Piece! Then I remembered the anime and sighed inwardly with relief. Usopp wasn't dead; Nami had just pretended to kill him to save the liar, and to prove to Arlong that she wasn't betraying him.

Still, hearing that one of the people I'd started thinking of as a friend hurt worse than the crash landing Lucy, Yosaku, Sanji, and I had just performed.

"Usopp-aniki was killed," Johnny cried, "by Nami-aneki!"

Everyone's eyes widened except mine, since I remembered what had happened.

* * *

**Yes! Another chapter done in time for the weekend! Sheesh, 6,000+ words... that was more than I thought. A LOT more. Consider this to be you guys' Christmas Break present (I just got out of school today). By the way, I have decided to start replying to reviews in the Author's Note section at the top of the page starting next chapter! And if you liked this update, don't forget to follow/favorite! It makes everyone happy. You get an email whenever I post a new chapter; I get more popular. It's a win-win situation! But please keep in mind that although it is highly appreciated if you follow/favorite One Piece Full Blast: From the East, it is not actually necessary. Either way, I will keep writing new chapters of the story.**

Damon: Poor sea bull. It was just hungry.

Sanji: I will feed any customer regardless if they can pay or not. But if the customer tries to eat me, they're screwed.

Damon: I'd still feel bad for Mohmoo, but then he FREAKIN' SMASHED INTO A REEF AND NEARLY KILLED US ALL!

Yosaku: *sweatdrops* Weren't you just defending that bastard?

**-TheRealEvanSG**


	11. No 11: To the Fortune Teller's Shop!

**And another chapter is here at last! Don't forget to leave a review if you like my story, and if you have an idea for something funny or a running gag, or even an OC enemy, let me know! I'll be happy to add it into my story. I'd like to make this as original as possible, so if there's something you'd like to see changed, let me know! Unfortunately, character deaths are something I can NOT change, as that could majorly effect the One Piece world in a way I didn't plan out. For instance, Ace getting rescued could cause Luffy and co. not to undergo the two years of intense training, and thus they'd get creamed in the New World.**

**To guislingerman****:** if that's your reaction from reading it, try writing it! I can't help but burst into silent laughter as I type the story. XD

**Chapter 11 start!**

* * *

Reunited at Last!  


Head for the Fortune Teller's Shop!  


* * *

**Previously, on ****One Piece Full Blast:**

_My eyes widened. No way could Usopp be dead! As annoying as he was, he was one of us! One of the good guys! One of the members of the crew destined to find the One Piece! Then I remembered the anime and sighed inwardly with relief. Usopp wasn't dead; Nami had just pretended to kill him to save the liar, and to prove to Arlong that she wasn't betraying him._

_Still, hearing that one of the people I'd started thinking of as a friend hurt worse than the crash landing Lucy, Yosaku, Sanji, and I had just performed._

_"Usopp-aniki was killed," Johnny cried, "by Nami-aneki!"_

_Everyone's eyes widened except mine, since I remembered what had happened._

"Is that true?!" Zoro spat in horror.

Johnny's face was ashen. "Yeah. I watched it happen with my own two eyes. That woman's a witch! In order to obtain some hidden treasure for herself in Cocoyashi Village, she was kissing up to Arlong!" He pounded his fist against the ground and knelt over. "And for that purpose, she killed without even thinking about it! She's a rotten-hearted lowlife! We've been fooled all this time."

Lucy turned to me, her eyes shadowed under her trademark straw hat and her raven-black hair blowing in the breeze. "Damon," she said calmly. "You're a psychic, right? Is that how it went?"

"Well," I began, "from any observer's point of view, it would have certainly looked like that, but you gotta remember that trickery is definitely Nami's forte."

Zoro's hard gaze softened a bit. "Then you mean - -"

I nodded triumphantly, pleased he could figure it out. "She only pretended to kill Usopp so that he could escape safely."

"But I saw blood on both of their hands!" Johnny protested, mystified. "She's a witch, I tell you!"

"BASTARD!" Lucy roared, suddenly slapping the blue-clothed bounty hunter and shaking him in fury. "Say that about Nami one more time and I swear I'll kill you!" Her straw hat fell off and rolled in the dirt next to her.

"Lucy-chan!" I said anxiously. "Calm down! His reaction was perfectly understandable!"

"But he called my friend a witch," she fumed, giving me such a glare that I almost couldn't believe it was the same Lucy. She looked like she wanted to rip out my guts and use them as wolf bait or something. I was seriously worried for my life for a second there, but luckily Zoro managed to calm her down.

I heaved a sigh of relief.

"I swear you're bipolar," I muttered, shaken by the event. I absentmindedly picked at a cut I'd gotten from the wreck.

"You don't have to believe me," Johnny cried, "but I watched it with my own two eyes! I know I saw her kill Usopp-aniki!"

"STOP MAKING SHIT UP!" Lucy swore, forgetting about being calm. "There's no way Nami would kill Usopp! They're nakama! Plus, Damon said it was a fake death!"

"Demo - -"

"Who's nakama, Lucy?" a familiar female voice said, almost sickeningly smug. I grinned and turned around, but what I saw made me pause. There stood Nami, sneering and fingering a new glove on her hand. She wore a green spaghetti strap shirt with white polka dots on it and had a blue tattoo on her left shoulder, a strange mark with a kind of spiraling shark on it.

Arlong's mark.

"Why did you come here?" she asked, a little more dangerously this time. Nami narrowed her eyes and squeezed her bo staff. You know, saying bo staff is actually a bit redundant, since "bo" means "staff" in Japanese... ARGH, DAMN ADHD!

"What are you talking about?" Lucy tilted her head, confused. A lock of her hair fell over her eye and she brushed it aside, a pout of annoyance on her face. "We're nakama. I came to get you!" She knelt down and picked up her precious treasure, dusting it off and stuffing it onto its seat of honor.

"How annoying!" Nami said sternly, arms folded about her chest.

I stepped back a little. "Eh? Nami?" That look on her face... either she was an incredibly good liar or somehow my appearance in this world had changed things so much that she actually DID kill Usopp.

"Nakama?" the navigator and cartographer said distastefully. "Don't make me laugh. You're more like a pathetic group of cooperators, don't you think?"

Lucy frowned.

"Damn you..." Johnny spat. "Even if Damon says you're innocent, I still know what I saw! You killed Usopp-aniki! How dare you! He was innocent!"

A sadistic smile spread across her face. "And your point is...? You wanna try killing me to avenge him?"

"Nani?!" he muttered, taking a step back but never softening his glare.

"Johnny!" I said sharply. "Stay calm. Remember, she didn't kill him!"

Her gaze turned on me. "And as for _you_," Nami sneered, "I always knew there was something weird with you from the start. You're no psychic. If you were, you'd have seen Usopp die. So sure, maybe you got lucky a few times, but that's it!"

My eye twitched. She was right, of course. I wasn't a psychic. I was as much of a liar as Usopp. And it was eating me up on the inside, not telling the crew the truth. But how could I tell them they were fictional characters in a popular anime from another world? They'd think I was even more insane than they probably already do.

She spun her bo staff around in her hand. "I'll tell you one thing," she informed us. "Right now Arlong wants to kill 'Roronoa Zoro and his posse.' All because Zoro went and did something stupid. You guys may have freaky, monster-like powers, but when faced with real monsters, you're NOTHING!"

"I dunno about that," I volunteered, raising a hand. "I did a pretty good number on Mohmoo on the way here."

"Eh?" Her eyes widened a little. "You guys fought Mohmoo and lived?"

Lucy giggled. "Yeah! Damon beat that dumb sea bull's ass!"

I knocked her over the head. "Don't call him dumb, he was starving! And I only punched him a few times 'cause I had to, got it?"

Nami the Snowman was back again. "Well, no matter. Hang around this island and its occupants long enough, and you guys will be killed for sure." She closed her eyes and tilted her head down. "Ah, well. It doesn't concern me."

"So you do care!" I said in mock-surprise. Her eye twitched almost as bad as mine.

Sanji swooned, nearly dropping his cigarette. "Ah~! Nami-swan looks beautiful even when she's so cold~! Hey, Nami-swan! It's me, me! Do you remember me? Let's go on a cruise together!"

"Baka," I muttered.

"You just stay out of this!" Zoro grumbled, interrupting the cook's love-sick waving. "You'll just complicate things."

"What did you two say? My love is always a hurricane!"

"Hurricanes are cool," I put in. "Your so called 'love?' Not so much." Snickering, Zoro and I turned away from the hopeless fool.

"EH?! Listen to me when I'm talking to you!"

Zoro put a hand on Wado Ichimonji. "Where is Usopp?"

"At the bottom of the sea," came the calm and cool reply.

"WHY, YOU! QUIT YOUR BULLSHIT!" The swordsman bent forward and nearly unsheathed his choice weapon, but a swift kick and punch from Sanji and I put that idea to rest.

"Do swordsmen attack women too?" the smoker asked. "Roronoa Zoro?"

I eyed Zoro uncertainly. "She's innocent. I don't like people who attack innocents." At least, I thought she was innocent...

He glared at Sanji. "Eh? What did you say? You don't even know what's going on here!" The unofficial first mate rounded on me. "And as for you, your psychic crap is a bunch of shit! I don't care if you're a demigod or whatever, but no way are you a psychic! She just admitted to killing Usopp! Why would she lie to us if she saved him?"

I sighed. A part of me wanted to spill the beans on this whole sad story right now, as it was the perfect opportunity, but it would be kinda pointless since everything comes together in time. If I didn't change anything, that is.

Sanji snorted. "Ha. After an emotional loss, of course you're irritable."

"Oi." Zoro tic-pulsed, pointing his sword at the second newest Straw Hat. "You'd better watch what you say."

I put a hand to my forehead and shook my head. "Aye, aye, aye, you're just making it worse."

"Mind your own business, bastard."

A chain of footsteps came from behind me, and then Yosaku appeared next to us, waving his arms desperately and pleading, "Anikis! Please don't bicker at a time like this!"

"That's right!" Nami agreed coldly. "If you're going to fight, do it off of this island. You outsiders should quit sticking your nose into this island's business." She turned, showing off her tattoo for everyone to see. "You still don't get it? The only reason I got close to you guys was for the money, nothing else. Now that you guys have nothing, you're of no use to me.

"I'll return the ship, so just go off and find another navigator who'd be stupid enough to head to the Grand Line with you. Go find One Piece or whatever..." She swiped her staff at us pointedly. "Just get the hell outta here! You're an eyesore!"

I thought I saw a brief flicker of pain in her eyes, but then they hardened again and the moment was over.

Nami opened her mouth to say something, but I cut her off. "Oi, Nami. Do you know where a Lady... uh, I forget what her name is, but it sounds like an espresso drink or something."

She blinked in surprise, furrowed her brow in thought, then narrowed her eyes suspiciously. "Oh, you mean that weirdo hermit Lady Venticus? Yeah, she runs a fortune telling shop out in the woods. There's a path to her place in Cocoyashi Village. What business do you have with her?"

From the tone of her voice, I could tell that she didn't like the oracle goddess, Lady Venticus, too much.

I shrugged. "My dad said I should talk to her and that she lived here, so while we're here I thought I might as well talk to her."

Her laugh was as rigid as the North Pole at Christmas time. "Well, good luck getting an audience with her," she scoffed. "She's always busy doing something and never actually tells anyone's fortunes. She's also a recluse who never visits the village, or even comes out of her mansion much."

I raised an eyebrow. My dad's side of the family sure had some weird characters.

But at least I had a destination now.

"Well, thanks anyway," I said.

Her expression darkened even more, if that was possible. "Goodbye."

"Nami..." Lucy murmured. There was an awkward silence where nobody moved or said anything, staring each other down. Then my captain closed her eyes and simply collapsed backwards.

The navigator's eyes widened a little.

"Lucy-aneki!" Johnny and Yosaku freaked, and I stared in confusion. Birds chirped in the forest as we all rushed to our female friend's side, save for Nami, but then a snore rose up into the air.

"Really?" I demanded from no one in particular. "She's sleeping at a time like this?"

"In the middle of the road?" Yosaku added, flabbergasted.

Her eye opened a little. "I don't care about what's going on here, but I'm not leaving. Plus I'm a bit sleepy." It closed and the snores continued.

"She can wake up and carry on a conversation at will?" I deadpanned.

"Aneki..." muttered Johnny.

"HAH?" His friend/brother/whatever gaped at the girl.

Zoro just facepalmed and I sweatdropped.

A sudden shout of pain and anger startled me. "FINE THEN! DO WHATEVER YOU WANT! GO AHEAD AND DIE FOR ALL I CARE!" Nami, who'd been the shouter, turned sharply and tore off along the dirt road, muttering darkly under her breath.

* * *

**COMMERCIAL BREAK OF SHITTY NOTHINGNESS!**

* * *

A far-off cannon shot shook the island, making the birds in the trees flock to the air, tweeting indignantly.

We all ignored that, and Sanji and Zoro sat down, Sanji leaning against a tree that had forsaken its brothers in the forest and chosen to live out here; Zoro simply sat down in the middle of the road, behind Lucy, who was now catching z's without a care in the world.

"Zoro-aniki!" Johnny tried. "What the hell are you thinking?"

"You're the target of Arlong and his gang, ya know!" Yosaku agreed. "Why don't you run away?"

"Now that we know Nami is that kind of lowlife, there's no reason for you to stay here on this island!"

"You want a reason to stay here on this island?" Zoro cut in. "There's your reason." He jabbed a finger at Lucy.

"Are you saying that even _you're_ thinking of accepting Nami back as a comrade?"

I drowned out their conversation, instead pulling out my iPod (which had somehow survived the wreck) from my jacket pocket and scrolling through my playlist. _Let's see_, I mused, as I stuffed my earbuds into my, well, ears. _What haven't I listened to recently? There's OneRepublic's _Counting Stars, Fireflies _by Owl City, _The Saltwater Room _by the same guy... basically the entire "Ocean Eyes" album_.

I tapped on the cover for that song, it flipped, and I pressed the shuffle button. Soon I was unconsciously tapping my foot to the beat of "Umbrella Beach." As the cheery notes blasted into my ears, I laid down uncomfortably on the road.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Johnny and Yosaku say something, wave, and leave. But I didn't care.

Lost in my music, I looked down and realized in surprise that I had gone through over half of the album. I looked around to see if anything was happening and noticed Sanji and Zoro bickering about something again, though I couldn't make out their words over my tunes.

I rolled my eyes and went back to Owl City.

Near the end of the song, I heard a sudden shout of relieved surprise preceded by the sound of something being smashed. I whirled around, tugged my earbuds out, and glanced wildly from side to side. "Where's the danger?" I asked. "Where is it?"

"He's still alive?" I heard Sanji gasp in a kind of relieved horror.

I turned to look in their direction. Sanji had aimed a kick at Zoro, who had went to block with his sword (which luckily was sheathed) and both had ended up hitting opposite sides of Usopp's face. Wait - - Usopp! That meant I didn't change anything after all! I felt an ocean of relief wash over me. Still though, suffering those two attacks just now couldn't have been good for him.

As if to voice my thoughts, Zoro muttered, "Uh, no, I'm pretty sure he's dead now."

The unnaturally long-nosed liar made a kind of strangled groan sound in agony, crying anime tears. His body sparkled with water, whether from the sea or sweat I couldn't tell. The two idiots stepped away from each other quickly and laughed weakly.

Lucy's eyes snapped open, she took a quick survey of the situation, and shrilled, "USOPP!" in a record low of about three seconds. "Did Nami do this to you!?" He shook the poor guy, which probably didn't do him any good either.

Sanji raised his hand nervously and pointed to Zoro. "Ah, no, gomen. It was Zoro and I."

"IT WAS YOU." Zoro shot back.

"Lucy!" Usopp groaned in obvious relief. "You're here!"

"Yeah, got here a while back."

The blonde cook waved. "Ah, I'm here, too. Nice to meet you."

The sniper glared at him and bounded to his feet, spitting in rage. "I'll kill you someday!" he promised.

"Hey, you're still fine even after all that?"

"SHUT THE HELL UP!"

"I'm here too!" I piped up.

"Oh, hi, Damon."

Zoro raised an eyebrow and frowned, a clear sign that he was confused. "Wait a minute, you were killed by Nami, right?"

Lucy popped up in the middle of us four. "Damn that Johnny. He was lying after all!"

I grinned and shrugged, walking off. "Well, now that that's all settled, I've got to go see a goddess. See ya guys later."

"See ya, Damon," my rubbery captain said.

As I walked along the road to Cocoyashi Village, trying not to throw up due to landlubber's feet, I marveled at the scenery, which I hadn't really had time to appreciate when I'd been tossed half a mile through the air at 20 freakin' miles per hour, no thanks to a certain rubber brained moron I know. Actually, I had no idea where I was going. For all I knew, I could have been headed in the wrong direction all together. But I let my instincts take over, as I'd learned to do in the past week.

The marshes were strange looking, like weird pools of water with random lillypads scattered about, and to my far right, the forest rose up, and one patch of it was considerably darker, almost as if it were holding a world-shattering secret or something. I laughed to myself and shrugged it off as my imagination, however, because when my gaze was redirected to the trees, they had returned to their normal light and cheeriness. Besides that, there were so many flowers here it looked like some crazy artist had dipped his paintbrush in all the colors on his palette and smeared it across the edges of the road. It was, in a word, beautiful.

And above all else hung the constant salty stench of the sea in the air, a constant reminder that I wasn't simply dreaming some weird, drug-induced dream or anything. Not that I would take drugs in the first place, but still.

Eventually, when my stomach had finally quelled its churning, I happened across a town, which I could only assume was Cocoyashi Village. Either no one was here, or they were all indoors, because everyone was missing except or a few people.

"Hey, jiisan," I called to an old man sitting on a bench in front of a pink house, feeding the birds. I shuddered. Pink, what a horrid color! "Do you know where the path to Lady Venticus's shop is?"

He snorted. "Ye wanna see _tha'_ weirdo? Alrigh', wha'ever. Th path 's over thar aways" - - he motioned vaguely with his hand to the right - - "'n' she lives 'bout a quarter mile past tha'." The old man's voice was hindered by a heavy Scottish or Irish accent, or something like that.

"Thank you very much!" I said with a small, polite bow.

After a bit of searching, since the old guy's directions weren't very detailed, I found the path. It sliced a denser, darker part of the forest in half and ran from north to south, in about the same direction I'd come from. I sighed. Great, I was walking in circles. I stuck my hands in my jean pockets and whistled the tune of the first One Piece opening as I walked.

I knew I was getting closer because, instinctively, I could feel it; there was a strange chill in the back of my neck that had nothing to do with the breeze. I also felt like every time my foot touched the ground, I was one step closer to my destiny. It was a creepy feeling and a feeling of awe at the same time, like the entire world was holding its breath for this one moment. The forest was totally silent, too, which added to the holding-its-breath feeling. No birds sang, no animals raced through the underbrush.

And then I broke through to a clearing and what I saw made my jaw drop.

It wasn't a shop. It wasn't even a mansion, like Nami had said.

No, Lady Venticus's home was a _way cool_ medieval style castle.

"Wicked," I breathed.

* * *

**Dun dun dun dun! Damon meets the weirdo immortal espresso drink in the next chapter, and gets something very important! But besides that, chapter 11 is completed, one day after chapter 10! Epic update rates, am I a right?**

Damon: Just who is this Lady Venticus anyway? And why was she named after coffee?

Lucy: Nami... I will save you!

Damon: *sweatdrops* You don't even know why Nami needs saving or that she needs it at all yet, dumbass!

Lucy: Ah, hai, true, true...

**Remember, I will be answering to reviews at the top of the page now, so if you have something to say to me, say it! Anything you say is appreciated, including constructive criticism, as long as it ain't a flame. Caught a mistake you want me to fix? Got a funny idea for the story? Got an OC enemy you want me to add? Liked a particular moment? Tell me!**

**Also, if you could follow/favorite if you liked my story, that would also be highly appreciated, though unnecessary. Not to be a noob, but it's a win-win situation! You get an update whenever I post a new chapter (which I will do regardless of follows/favorites); my story climbs the ranks of fanfiction. Everybody lives happily ever after, like some shitty Disney fairy tale. The end.**

**Hope you enjoyed this new update!**

**-TheRealEvanSG**


	12. No 12: Blue Swords and Muddy Prophecies!

**Chapter 12 is here! Can I have an encore? Or some epic victory music? Or a cookie? ...A virtual cookie? ANYTHING?**

Damon: Hell no, shit-author.

Oi, I thought we were on better terms now!

Damon: Not after me being so bored, we ain't.

**Well, anyway. Just a quick reminder, I DO NOT OWN ONE PIECE OR ANYTHING IN IT. All I own is Damon and the gods and demons, plus any other enemy he has to fight. Which makes them my slaves. Muahahahaha! ...Anyway, here's my replies to reviews on the previous chapter!**

**Undying Soul98:** Thank you! I know a lot of people are prejudiced against most falls-into-OP stories because of all the terrible Mary Sue's and Gary Stu's out there, but personally I think it's a fascinating subject, so I'm glad you like my story! I went into a whole lotta planning for my fanfiction, so you can be sure it won't be like the others in this genre. Although there are a few other good ones, which inspired this story... but I digress.

**gamelover41592: **I'm glad you liked it! :D

**guisniperman: **Oh, sorry for the mistake. I already said who she is, the oracle goddess, but that was a clever guess. And since he's in a different story altogether (I actually did read that one, and I thought it was kinda cool with his Naruto powers and stuff) I'm not gonna use him, especially since I'm not sure whether he'd allow me to or not. I don't want to get in trouble or anything. I was thinking more like OC demigods/demons/Senshi (you'll find out what a Senshi is this chapter) that you guys created.

**Chapter 12 start!**

* * *

Blue Swords and Muddy Prophecies

Meeting the Oracle Goddess, Lady Venticus!

The Walk to Arlong Park

* * *

**Previously on One Piece Full Blast:  
**

_I knew I was getting closer because, instinctively, I could feel it; there was a strange chill in the back of my neck that had nothing to do with the breeze. I also felt like every time my foot touched the ground, I was one step closer to my destiny. It was a creepy feeling and a feeling of awe at the same time, like the entire world was holding its breath for this one moment. The forest was totally silent, too, which added to the holding-its-breath feeling. No birds sang, no animals raced through the underbrush._

_And then I broke through to a clearing and what I saw made my jaw drop._

_It wasn't a shop. It wasn't even a mansion, like Nami had said._

_No, Lady Venticus's home was a way cool medieval style castle._

_"Wicked," I breathed._

A wind blew across the clearing, swaying the trees and making my leather jacket flutter behind me. Once I managed to pick my jaw up from the ground and shut off the sparkles that had appeared in my eyes, I pushed forward to the oaken doors of the castle. Luckily, there was no moat or drawbridge or anything like that, just giant double-doors. A gilded brass door knocker hung off the front of said doors, gleaming brilliantly in the warm sunlight. The walls were stone blocks and covered in moss, and towers and turrets rose up into the air.

"This is just too cool!" I said in delight. Here I was, a New York City street kid, about to step into a castle in the world of One Piece. It was pretty damn awesome, but it made me wonder just what the hell kind of a person lived here.

I gripped the brass knockers and tapped them against the doors.

-BANG! BANG!-

The sound echoed through the forest, making me wince. Maybe I had overdone it a bit. There was a few moments of silence, and I was about to turn away when the doors opened by themselves.

_Okay_... I thought slowly. _That isn't creepy at all_.

I stepped through the doors into the Great Hall, which was as majestic and legit as the rest of the place. A red-and-gold designer hid the floor; a golden chandelier hovered high above me; and portraits of various famous people from my world and heroes from other manga, animes, books, etc. hung on the walls. At least, when the doors opened, that was what it looked like. But when I crossed the threshold the doors swung closed behind me and I was suddenly wrapped in darkness.

"What the - -" I gasped.

The room lit up again, and suddenly I was in a totally different place. There were still oak doors behind me, but they were much smaller, along with the entire room itself. Instead of a castle, I was now in a slightly cramped room with purple walls and a creepy mist on the ceiling. A wooden desk sat directly in front of me, not even five paces ahead, and various creepy nicknacks like shrunken heads, a skull-shaped lamp, a broken pencil, and a crystal ball covered its top.

Then my eyes took in the person sitting at the desk, and I couldn't help but stare.

She was, in a word, a hag. Sorry, but there was simply no better way to put it! She was old and small and frail-looking, craggy fingers tracing lines on the desk randomly. The old woman's face looked like it could peel off at any time, and her hair was such a bright white it should have come with a warning label: DO NOT LOOK DIRECTLY AT HAIR. PERMANENT BLINDNESS MAY OCCUR. The rest of her body I couldn't see, because she wore a simple brown cloak that hid her other features.

"**A visitor?**" she said, her voice weak. I thought I detected an English accent, but I couldn't be sure. "**I haven't had a visitor in quite some time now. I'd say... oh... twenty years?**"

I swallowed, my throat dry. "Where am I?" I asked.

She raised an eyebrow, her roaming fingers moving to the crystal ball that sat on her desk. "**Why, you're in my shop. My fortune telling shop.**"

"Your fortune telling shop?" I echoed. "Wait, you mean you're Lady Venticus? But I was supposed to be in her castle just now! How the heck did I end up here? What happened?"

She chuckled weakly, a raspy laugh that reminded me of cat nails on a chalkboard. "**Silly boy. It was an Illusion, an Illusion! Nothing more, nothing less.**"

"An Illusion?" I said, groaning inwardly at the fact that nobody ever gave me the whole story. "What's that?"

She cackled again, making me wince. "**An Illusion is something we gods and goddesses can use,**" Lady Venticus explained. "**It's a kind of magic. Yes, that's how to best explain it. We cast the Illusion on ourselves our or belongings and we - - or it - - changes to something humankind can comprehend. In the case of my shop, a castle.**"

I tilted my head. "But why do you have to cast these... Illusions?"

"**It's because of the Three Mortal Sins.**"

A wind blew through the shop, though that shouldn't be possible because we were indoors and no windows were open or anything. I felt like these Three Mortal Sins, whatever they were, were incredibly important.

I frowned and asked, "What are the Three Mortal Sins?"

"**You don't know about them?**" Lady Venticus blinked, her dark blue eyelids momentarily disappearing underneath saggy skin. "**Aeso didn't explain much, did he? That baka. He never does. Very well then.**" She rapped her weak fist against the surface of the table. "**Listen up, young hero, because this is a very important lesson.**"

I nodded, though still a bit wary of the old woman, proved by the twitching of my eye.

"**The Three Mortal Sins are, in layman's terms, the Ten Commandments of the immortal world. They were handed to us by God 900 years ago in this world's time and... millenia ago in your world's time. If any one god or goddess breaks these Sins an accumulated total of seven times over a period of 396 years, or one Mayan bak'tun, then that god or goddess turns into a demon and is cast out of the heavens temporarily.**"

I took a step back. "Wait, so you mean that all demons were originally gods? ...And what do you mean by temporarily?"

She bent her head, her almost glowing hair descending over her face. "**You see, Damon, if a god or goddess turns into a demon, then he or she loses most of their humanity. They start to become evil. However, they still have a chance to repent. If they decide that they want to be forgiven, and they mean it, then that demon or demoness can and will be returned to godhood by our Father.**"

I nodded slowly. "Okay, I see... but what about that demon I defeated at the Baratie? I'm pretty sure I killed him. I _did_ knock him out and drop him into the sea unconscious and all... Does that mean he'll never get the chance to return to godhood?" I felt a crushing sense of guilt, and also a little anger at Aeso. He'd never told me any of this! He just said I had to kill the demons to stop every world from burning to ashes!

"**No.**" came Lady Venticus's simple answer.

I blinked, confused. "Wait, nani?"

"**That demon, Ug Lee, was destined to never repent,**" she explained. "**My younger sister Vio confided that to me. Being goddesses with similar areas of reign makes us closer than most.**"

I sighed in relief. "Oh, good."

"**If you hadn't killed that man,**" she continued, "**he would have eventually turned into what is known as a Senshi among our ranks.**"

"A... Senshi? Isn't that the Chinese word for 'warrior?'"

The oracle goddess nodded. "**Yes, that's right. We have called these completely evil types of demons 'Senshi,' however, because they are seasoned fighters and clever with their battles. They nearly never lose but are more vulnerable than even demons, who can only be killed by demigods. Senshi, on the other hand, can be killed both by demigods and regular mortals.**"

"Why do we have to fight them, though?" I put in. "Can't the gods just kill them with a quick lightning bolt or something?"

"**No, that would be impossible for any self-respecting god or goddess,**" said Venticus with a shake of her head. "**And that is because one of the Three Mortal Sins is the Sin of Murder, which bans any immortal from killing any other immortal. And evil or not, demons and Senshi are, unfortunately, still considered immortal because they cannot die from natural causes.**"

"That stinks," I puffed.

"**Quite,**" she lamented. "**Now, I assume you are here in my shop for something other than a history lesson, no?**"

I nodded. "That's right. Aeso said you have something to tell me."

"**That I do, that I do. A prophecy came to me a little while.**" Her hands hovered over the crystal ball and she peered into it expectantly. "**Now, let's see, I have it here somewhere... where is it? I need to clean this darned thing out some time... Ah! There it is.**" She drew her hands back quickly, as though pulling something out of the ball.

"Um, did you - -" I started, but she waved her hand and I fell silent.

She opened her mouth to say something, then paused and seemed to think better of it. She bent down under the desk and disappeared momentarily, then came up with a sword in a deep purple sheath. "**The name of t****his blade is Chiwohiku,**" she announced and handed it to me. "**It shall give you boosted power but cannot harm regular mortals.**"

"Cool," I said appreciatively. I took the sword and also a belt that she handed me and strapped it to my hip like Zoro.

"**Now, here is your prophecy.**" Her voice became raspy, like a thousand snakes all hissing at once, and I backed up to the doors, eyes widening. The mist around the ceiling suddenly swooped down and enveloped her, and she recited, "_**From the east/across the sands/above the clouds/before the gates/into the shadows/through the land/under the seas/with one plus eight./The sun shall rise at break of dawn/and the ember ejected from darkness's yawn.**_"

Then, quite suddenly, the mist dissipated and Lady Venticus slumped over in her chair.

There was a great _POP!_ sound, and the room was abruptly dark once more. I felt the sensation of being sucked backwards by a kind of giant vacuum cleaner. My head hit something both hard and soft at the same time, and kind of itchy. A sour taste filled my mouth, and I realized, I'd bitten my tongue by accident. Spitting blood, I sat up and opened my eyes.

I wasn't in Lady Venticus's shop.

I wasn't in the clearing.

I wasn't even in the woods anymore.

I was sitting in the middle of one of Cocoyashi Village's dirt streets, and a very familiar redheaded girl was screaming, "ARLONG! ARLONG! ARLONG!" and crying, stabbing her own shoulder with every word, kneeling alone in the street. My eyes widened and I winced, my own shoulder throbbing in sympathy.

"Nami..." I murmured.

Her blood-soaked blade arched up into the air for another stab, but Lucy walked up and her hand shot out to stop the self-attack. Nami's pained shouting paused and she turned, allowing me to see her tear-ridden face. She looked older, much older, and it seemed as though centuries of agony had built up in her eyes.

"Lucy..." she cried.

The knife dropped to the road in a clatter. I got to my feet as Nami pounded against the ground, crying, "Why?! Why are you still here?! You don't know anything! You don't know a thing about what's been happening on this island for the past eight years."

"You think that'll stop her?" I spoke up.

She jumped and they both turned to me. "Damon?!" Nami spat.

"Oh, there you are!" Lucy said. "I couldn't find you! You missed it, Damon, there was this old guy with a really cool pinwheel on his head! Why do you have a sword?" I opened my mouth to reply, but then she blinked and turned to Nami. "And yeah, I know nothing about what's going on here."

She turned away from us and I sighed. Ignored again.

"This is none of your business, both of you!" Nami hissed, her body shaking. Her fingers dug into the dirt. "I told you to leave this island, didn't I?!"

"Yeah, you told me." was the simple answer.

Nami threw dirt back and it dissipated into dust at Lucy's feet. "GO AWAY! YOU... GO AWAY! GO AWAY!" The words became like a mantra, increasing in volume and pain. I gritted my teeth. For causing my friend to go through so much pain... a flare of anger burst inside me, and I forgot about my strange visit with Lady Venticus. "Go away..." Nami moaned quietly.

Lucy didn't move a muscle.

The navigator stopped throwing dirt back, her left arm coated in red blood. She hiccuped, crying so much she made a sound like the whine of a hurt puppy.

Her head lifted and turned, and I could see the tears again. "Lucy, Damon..." she cried. "Help me."

I grinned, and Lucy took her hat off her head and stuck it on Nami's. A beat skipped, and then I shrugged off my leather jacket and walked over to them, placing it gently on my desperate friend's back.

Nami's eyes widened.

A spark passed between the two of us, a spark of pure anger and hatred for the damned bastard who would dare do this to our nakama, our precious nakama. We nodded and walked back together, then glared up at the sky. Lucy and I shouted, "DAMN STRAIGHT!"

A quiet murmur of "Lucy... Damon..." came from behind us.

We glared down the path.

Zoro, Sanji, and Usopp had arrived. Zoro was sitting on a bench, Sanji was standing in the middle of the road smoking a cigarette, and Usopp was on the road, legs folded Indian style and back turned from us. As one, the three all rose.

Lucy and I marched down the road, looks of equivalent anger on our faces.

"We're going," she announced.

They nodded.

"Hai!" Zoro, Sanji, Usopp, and I said.

We all marched to Arlong Park in one row, side by side, taking up the whole road. An electric bolt of adrenaline, anger, hatred, anticipation, and excitement stabbed through my soul. The sun beat down hotly on my neck - - actually, my body in general - - but that didn't quell my bloodlust. Someone was gonna pay. Screw the storyline! Screw not stealing the spotlight! I'd never felt such a deep sensation in my entire life, and if I didn't have my own battle to fight, then I was gonna duke it out with Arlong himself. My hatred was rooted in me so deeply, it seemed to be a part of my DNA and all rational thought had escaped my mind except one sentence.

_Someone WILL PAY!_

* * *

Two beat-up men sat, slumped, against the gates. One wore a red and grey helmet as well as green clothes. The other had a spiky hair cut and wore blue clothes, and he had his name in kanji tattooed onto his left cheek. They had short swords that were deadly sharp. Both were injured badly. They blocked the way of a crowd of angry villagers carrying an assorted array of weapons, including shovels, makeshift scythes, farming forks, and even a pan.

The two men were Johnny and Yosaku, the self-proclaimed "biggest and baddest bounty hunting duo on the seas."

"Out of the way," said a villager carrying a sword and wearing a red outfit with a cap. He was known as Gen, or by a certain ginger navigator, 'Gen-san.' "We've come to see the mermen."

"After finding out the truth about Nami-aneki," said Johnny calmly, "there was only one thing left for us to do - - beat Arlong. With that in mind, we came here to Arlong Park."

"But we lost badly," his partner added.

"No offense, but we ain't moving for you guys. Not for you, who have no chance of winning."

"Nani?" Gen-san growled.

Yosaku spoke up. "We're waiting for _them_ to come. _They_ should be here soon, so don't worry."

"Them?" the village leader echoed.

Johnny smirked. "Bet your life on it. If _they_ can't beat Arlong, then no one can."

Behind the mass of people, five fighters in their teens marched along a road. In the middle was a girl with a low V-cut red vest that was buttoned up. She also wore short jean shorts but her trademark straw hat was missing, instead safely secured to another occupant. Her hair was raven black and flowing in the breeze, and her hard eyes were a beautiful onyx color. A thin scar was visible under her left eye. The only protection her feet had was sandals. This was Monkey D. Lucy, captain of the Straw Hat Pirates and future Pirate Queen.

The first person on her right was a green-haired swordsman who usually carried three swords, but because two had been broken during his last battle, only had his most treasured possession, the legendary blade Wado Ichimonji. He wore a blue floral-patterned Hawaiian shirt, stolen from a fishman, and green pants. His chest was heavily bandaged to stop a wound he'd gotten from his last battle from bleeding again. A dark green haramaki was strapped around his wrist. This was Roronoa Zoro, an ex-bounty hunter and unofficial first mate of the Straw Hat Pirates.

Beside Zoro marched a seventeen year old boy wearing a dark purple Pac-Man shirt and deep blue jeans. A sheathed sword swung on a belt at his side, which he had never used before and only gotten earlier that day. He wore Adidas sneakers, slightly fraying, and had a clean boy's cut, parted to the side. He was thin for his age because he used to live on the streets of New York City, though he wasn't as thin now as he had been a week before, due to getting three square meals a day at the sea restaurant, the Baratie. This was Damon D. Digger, demigod of the sea and psychic of the Straw Hat Pirates.

On the other side of their captain was a cleanly, handsomely dressed man. He wore a simple blue suit and black tie under an equally black jacket and black dress pants. He wore black dress shoes that were slightly dented from years of kicking customers who wasted food in front of him. His blonde hair hid his left eye from sight, but his right eye was blue and had an eyebrow that was as swirly as a helix. He smoked a cigarette. This was Sanji, the new cook of the Straw Hat Pirates.

Finally, the last person had an incredibly, almost impossibly long nose and brown eyes. He had black hair and puffy dreadlocks. He wore a tan, diamond-patterned bandana around his hand and carried a simple green slingshot as his only weapon. He wore sniper goggles, brown overalls, green shoes, and a tan bag carrying various types of "Sure-Kill Stars." He was Usopp, liar, wimp, and sniper of the Straw Hat Pirates.

"There!" cried Johnny and Yosaku.

The villagers all turned.

"Oh, it's them..." said a young woman among their ranks who had purple hair and wore a yellow shirt. Her sizable chest had a rather large, blue tattoo on it and her shoulder was bandaged. This was Nojiko, Nami's last remaining family.

Gen-san was mystified. "Those guys and that girl? What about them?"

"If those guys can't stand up to Arlong and survive," repeated Yosaku, "then there's no hope. Not only for this island, but for the whole of East Blue."

Johnny nodded. "Remember the faces of those five. They have come to reshape your future."

"Move," ordered Lucy.

Ugly laughter came from inside Arlong Park, and the expressions on all the Straw Hats' faces darkened.

The villagers, Johnny, and Yosaku wisely moved.

The black-haired girl smashed her fist into the door in a rage of fury, and it splintered inward but didn't break. She gritted her teeth and punched again. Now the other door of the double set splintered. Her fist barreled into the middle of the doors this time, and they imploded, becoming little more than rubble and splinters.

Gen-san's jaw dropped and Nojiko's eyes widened. The rest of the villagers gasped, and Johnny and Yosaku smirked.

As the dust cleared away, the bowels of Arlong Park were revealed.

"Which one of you is Arlong?" Lucy demanded once the dust had cleared.

* * *

**Chapter 12 completed! Oo, someone's gonna get their ass handed to them on a silver platter! Heh heh heh... for those of you who are wondering, unfortunately it WON'T be Arlong. There'll be a new member to his crew for Damon to beat up. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this chapter, and don't forget to leave a review on your opinion, as long as it's not a flame.**

Damon: IF I GET THE CHANCE, I'M GONNA REDUCE ARLONG TO NOTHING BUT FISH FOOD!

Nami: Bellemere... we can finally be free again if my friends win...

Lucy: YOSH! LET'S DO THIS!

Sanji: The flames of my heart shall melt the chains of Nami's pain!

Zoro: Baka.

**Anyone who can figure out what Damon's prophecy means (at least, all but the last line since that would be impossible for you to figure out) will get a shout out in the next chapter! Besides that, don't forget to leave a review if you liked this chapter! A follow or a favorite would also be appreciated, but not needed, as I have said many times before.**

**-TheRealEvanSG**


	13. No 13: The Return of Mohmoo!

**Oh, yes! Another battle scene is coming up! WHOOP WHOOP! Prepare for epicness and bad-ass Damon. But unfortunately the fight won't be in this chapter... *pouts* My replies to reviews on the previous chapter:**

**Oh, and a shout out to guisniperman for correctly interpreting Damon's prophecy! Congrats, dude! Take a virtual cookie. But don't eat too many... I ain't cleanin' that mess up. Oh, there was also a Guest reviewer but I don't know who they were because they weren't signed in... so cookies to the Guest dude! (P.S. He contacted me again with his name, Eona Mendoza. Congrats, Mendoza-san!)  
**

**Chapter 13 start!**

* * *

The Return of Mohmoo!

Lucy's Stupidity Strikes Again  


* * *

**Previously on One Piece Full Blast:  
**

_The black-haired girl smashed her fist into the door in a rage of fury, and it splintered inward but didn't break. She gritted her teeth and punched again. Now the other door of the double set splintered. Her fist barreled into the middle of the doors this time, and they imploded, becoming little more than rubble and splinters._

_Gen-san's jaw dropped and Nojiko's eyes widened. The rest of the villagers gasped, and Johnny and Yosaku smirked._

_As the dust cleared away, the bowels of Arlong Park were revealed._

_"Which one of you is Arlong?" Lucy demanded once the dust had cleared._

Arlong Park was, if I wanted to be true to myself, actually pretty cool. The tower was like something straight from Japan, which considering this is an anime world, was probably not far off the mark. A rectangular pool of sea water was blocked from the ocean by two doors, though they were currently open. The surrounding area was all cement floor, and a large, thick fence like thing wrapped around the base's contours. The things that ruined it were 1) the rubble and dust lying everywhere since Lucy smashed the doors down and 2) the fact that it was occupied by about three dozen of the world's ugliest. Creatures. Ever.

Seriously. They were the definition of ugly. If you looked up "ugly" in this world's dictionary, it'd probably have a picture of fishmen next to it. Not to be racist or anything, but I stared in horror at their bodies, which were all half-human and half-sea creature. I saw some various weird additions, like gills on all of them, fins, sharp and pointed teeth, and webbed feet. Plus, they were every color of the rainbow imaginable, which just wasn't meant to be. Everything about them screamed _NOT NATURAL!_

As a Christian, I had trained myself to look past the outside of someone's appearance and see their true self, and maybe the fact that I knew these fishmen would kill for fun wasn't making me feel much guilt; but I could not make myself do that.

I gagged mentally at them instead.

"Arlong?" said a fishman with pale blue skin, curly black hair, and an ugly jagged nose. He wore a yellow shirt with some red design that I couldn't make out from this distance, as well as dark green shorts that did not go well with his skin. Not that I knew about fashion, but he needed a stylist. "That would be my name."

"Ore wa Lucy," Lucy stated calmly. She marched forward across the huge complex, hands clenched into tight fists. My brain, which I had realized by now was hardwired for Japanese, translated 'ore wa' into 'my name is.' _Great_, I sighed. _I'm a human Google Translate._

"Lucy?" mused Arlong. "And just what the hell are you?"

"A kaizokou."

A weird looking fishman with pink skin, tentacles, big suction-cup like pores, and gray spiky hair gasped suddenly and jabbed his finger at her. "That's her!" he announced. "She's here! The girl who likes to take walks!"

I was slightly confused on how he knew her, but I shrugged and returned to the heat of the moment.

"Not so fast there, you," a fatso with light green skin and a pink shirt snickered, clearly confident that Lucy was a weakling. Where do you think you're going?"

A tall one with a striped shirt spoke up. "You have quite a bit of explaining to give us first, sister."

Lucy paid him no mind and simply kept on walking. The fatso from before and another bozo stepped in front of her, gripped her shoulders, and tried to threaten her, but she simply took _them_ by the shoulders (which should have been impossible; they were at least half a human taller than her, but then again, she DID eat the Gum-Gum Fruit) and smashed their heads together with a sickening bong like a bell. "Out of the way!" she commanded.

They collapsed to the ground and in spite of myself, I winced. That was gonna hurt in the morning.

"And what does a kaizokou want with me?" Arlong asked, unperturbed, as though this was a common occurrence.

Lucy stopped short, bent her arm, gripped the bent arm's wrist, and leaned forward while throwing them back, all the while growling in anger. She let loose a terrible battle cry and her arm snapped forward, barreling into a collision course with Arlong's face. With a bone-shattering CRUNCH, Arlong was tossed unceremoniously through the air. He landed on the cement with enough force to shake it, bounced and rolled, and smashed to an abrupt halt against the fence, throwing a cloud of dust into the air.

Gasps of fear and panic from Arlong's crew. Gasps of awe and disbelief from the villagers.

Smirks from us Straw Hats. The bastard was finally getting his just desserts.

When the dust cloud cleared, there was the fishman pirate captain, stuffed into an Arlong-shaped hole in his fence. He regarded Lucy darkly and spat, "Who the hell _are_ you?"

"DON'T YOU DARE MAKE MY NAVIGATOR CRY!" Lucy bellowed, her female voice breaking midway.

Several more fishmen leaped out of the rectangular pool, cursing, "Bitch! How dare you hit Arlong-san!"

Sanji and I leaped to action, him with his kicks and me with a few well-placed Tempest Fists, stealing sea water from the conveniently placed pool. "You damned weaklings stay out of this!" Sanji ordered as they flew back with pained shouts.

"Never call my captain a bitch in front of me!" I told them, seething.

We stepped into place beside Lucy once all those guys were taken care of. Sanji was on the left, and I was on the right.

"Honestly," Sanji muttered. "Those bastards, attacking a defenseless woman."

"She's not defenseless," I pointed out.

"It's not like I'm going to loose even though I don't have any weapons," Lucy agreed, slightly annoyed.

"Whatever," the love cook conceded, not willing to get in a fight with a lady, even a tomboy like Lucy. "I just don't want you to hog all the enemies."

"A, desu ka."

Usopp stepped forward, shivering in fright. "Uh, I-I don't really m-mind... if you h-hog them all, that is..."

"That's some bravery you've got there, Usopp," said Zoro in mock-awe, rolling his eyes. Even though the swordsman was a bit of a jerk, when he was making fun of other people, he was funny.

The pink tentacle fishman gasped again and jabbed his finger at the local Marimo. "Ah! It's him! It's that guy! The unknown swordsman!"

A pale blue skinned fishman with gorilla muscles, who looked more human than his kin except for his strange hair and rather protruding elbows, supplied the answer. "Roronoa Zoro."

"As I thought, as I thought!" the geek in the pink mused. "He's the guy who tricked me! He rode me... I mean, I gave him a ride..."

"Look, that long-nose!" said a long-mouthed guy with purple skin.

Mr. Pink was mystified. "EH?! But Nami killed that guy!"

"He's alive," said someone behind them that I couldn't see. "Which means..."

Gorilla Chest narrowed his eyes. "Aha! Yappari!" (I translated this into 'I knew it!) "I was right all along! That woman's a traitor!"

I gave them all my most deadliest wolf glare. "THE ONLY TRAITORS ARE YOU DAMNED FISHMEN! YOU PROMISED NAMI HER VILLAGE'S FREEDOM IF SHE COULD RAISE 100,000,000 BELLI, BUT STOLE THE MONEY JUST BEFORE SHE COULD COLLECT ALL OF THE AMOUNT SO SHE WOULD BE FORCED TO CONTINUE WORKING FOR YOU! YOU BROKE YOUR PROMISE, WHICH MAKES YOU _TRAITORS!_" A breeze danced across Arlong Park, rippling our clothes and blowing Lucy's hair to the side.

Arlong laughed. "Us? Traitors? We never broke our promise. I will give Nami her village back if she can present to me 100,000,000 belli. Anyway... so you five are pirates, eh? I see. So that's the relationship between you guys. I thought you were just Nami's victims. But, JYAHAHAHA! What can five weaklings do against a superior being like me?"

"Do you think this is what Fisher Tiger would want you to do?" I asked, narrowing my eyes.

He glared at me. "Fisher Tiger was a hero to fishman! He saved us from the human slave traders, and then was killed by humans! I'm avenging his name!"

"He saved humans, too," I pointed out. "But what about Jinbei? I bet he'd flip if he knew what you were doing!"

"Jinbei was a bastard fool who wanted to make peace with humans," he cursed. "He will soon see the errors of his ways, mark my words."

"Nyuhuhuhu!" laughed the weird six-armed pinkie, walking up to us and coming to a stop between our group and the rectangular pool. "Calm down, Arlong-san. These guys are just bakas." He turned to us. "You think Arlong-san will waste his time with the likes of you? _He _will be enough for you!" He turned to the ocean and blew air out of his long, horn-like mouth. A blast like a trumpet emitted from it, and then for a second nothing happened._  
_

Behind us, the crowds had started muttering and screaming in terror.

I blinked and raised an eyebrow. "Eh? They're afraid of something."

Then Arlong Park started shaking, water from the pool splashing onto the cement floor of the complex.

"Wha-Wha-What's going on?!" Usopp cried, totally freaking out.

A big wave started rising up past the coastline. The back of my neck was tingling with a familiar feeling, the one I'd gotten on our trip here so many times. The sea was being disturbed by something HUGE.

"Nyuhuhuhu!" laughed pinkie. "You guys can be his next meal!"

I grinned. "Not if it's who - - or _what_ - - I think it is!"

"COME OUT, MOHMOO!"

Lucy perked up. "Mohmoo?"

"Hey, isn't Mohmoo that sea bull we met on the way here?" Sanji said, frowning.

A pillar of water erupted out of the sea and my the back of my neck went crazy. I frowned, cursing whoever gave me this pointless sensitivity, and directed my thoughts to the ocean, commanding it mentally to calm the freakin' hell DOWN! Sea water streamed off of glistening scales to reveal none other than that dumb old bastard Mohmoo himself, the sea bull that sent our ship flying through the air. He looked a little worse for the wear, tears in his eyes and a nasty bump on his forehead.

"It's... It's a monster!" Usopp moaned. "The monster from the Grand Line that crushed Gosa Village!"

I blinked. "Mohmoo crushed a village? But he's harmless. Although he _did_ send our ship flying and nearly sink us..."

"YOU CALL THAT HARMLESS!? And wait, you met him before?"

I nodded. "Uh-huh. On the way here."

Mohmoo gave a miserable groan.

"Eh..." Pinkie said.

I blinked and looked up at the sea bull.

"What's he say?" Lucy asked me eagerly.

"Cussing removed? 'I need an aspirin.' ...He says."

My captain was reduced to frenzied giggles while Usopp regarded me in awe and confusion. "You can understand that thing?'

"Yup, comes with being a demigod. I can talk to all sea creatures, apparently."

"Sugoi..."

"So old Mohmoo was a nakama of the fishmen?" Sanji summed up.

The sea bull noticed us and started crying anime tears, probably remembering my savage attack on its snout. I winced, shrugged, and smiled apologetically. And as it turned and slunk away, I have to admit I felt kind of bad.

"Matte!" Pinkie called, which meant 'wait.' "Mohmoo! Where do you think you're going?! Matte! Matte, I tell you, matte!"

Arlong spoke up. "Mohmoo... what are you doing?" The sea bull froze. "Well, if you wanna run away, I won't try and stop you, would I, Mohmoo?"

The feeling on the back of my neck changed. It grew... colder?

"It's coming!" Usopp cried.

Suddenly Mohmoo swung back around, roaring angrily. His eyes had rolled back in his head and his teeth looked like they could rip apart the cement foundations of Arlong Park like paper. I glared at Arlong. Something wasn't right here. Whatever he had said had made Mohmoo, one of the creatures under my dad's protection, go nuts. I clenched my hands into fists and stepped forward, ready to calm Mohmoo down even if I had to knock him out, but Lucy put a hand up to stop me.

"You got to do it last time." Her face was stern. "It's my turn. Plus, I have a new move I want to try out."

I raised my eyebrow, but nodded and stepped back. Captain's orders.

Too bad I didn't remember the anime.

Around us, a lot of the other fishmen had followed Mohmoo's lead and were charging us with weapons and fists raised. I motioned to my nakama, and they nodded curtly. We swooped into the fray - - well, all of us did except for Usopp, who cowered behind a pillar and shot random Sure-Kill Stars from there.

"Her arms stretched?!" I heard the geek in the pink yell in surprise.

Arlong piped in. "She possesses the power of the Devil's Fruit?"

"The Gum-Gum Fruit to be exact," said someone else, an unfamiliar voice I'd never heard before. I knocked out one of the bozos and glanced around, searching out the owner of the voice.

"What about the other one?" the fishman leader asked. "The one who's controlling water?"

"Demigod." the unfamiliar voice supplied.

I blinked in surprise. One of Arlong's crew knew about demigods and immortals? I gave a quick uppercut to another underling and continued looking for the speaker, but I couldn't do too much searching because Zoro gave a sudden shout of surprise.

"Everyone get down! Lucy's being a baka!"

No questions were asked. If Lucy was being an idiot, some shit that could get us hurt was gonna happen, and if I could avoid it in any way possible, then I would avoid it. We all hit the cement.

"Gum-Gum PINWHEEL!" Lucy shouted, and we felt something huge swoop above us, displacing the air. My neck tingled and I could tell that Mohmoo had left the ocean... but that didn't make any sense. I frowned, rolled over so I could see what was going on, and my jaw dropped. LUCY HAD LITERALLY GRABBED MOHMOO BY HIS FREAKIN' HORNS AND WAS SWINGING HIM THROUGH THE FREAKIN' AIR IN CIRCLES! No way was that possible, but here it was, happening right in front of me! The force of Mohmoo repeatedly being swung like that was creating a circular flow of air.

"She's so strong!" was all I could think of to say.

"THAT'S YOUR REACTION?!" Usopp admonished.

All the remaining pirates that we hadn't defeated yet where knocked out, flung to the side. As Lucy's spins got crazier and crazier, she let go, and Mohmoo flew through the air and out to sea, crying and groaning, and landed with a humongous SPLASH! I stared. That was pretty damn awesome! I looked around. Arlong Park had taken a heavy toll because of that attack. Some of the building's facade had been destroyed and was still crumbling now, and a few of the smaller lean-to's on the grounds had been decimated as well.

"I didn't come here to fight these guys!" Lucy informed everyone, panting. "The one I want to take down *pant* is YOU!" She pointed at Arlong.

"That's just perfect." said Arlong in the rubble of his fence. "I've been considering what the best way to kill you would be."

I scrambled to my feet and rapped Lucy on the head. "That was too dangerous, you baka!"

Sanji, who had been busy swooning at our captain's strength, glared at me. "Oi! Don't call her a baka, baka!"

"Hypocrite."

"DID YOU WANT TO KILL US, TOO?!" Usopp demanded angrily.

Lucy tilted to the side, pouting. She tilted to the other side. She lifted her feet - - or tried to, at least, but for some reason she couldn't. I looked down and saw what the problem was: She had smashed her feet into the cement foundations.

"WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DOING?" Usopp shrieked, becoming shark-like and looking eerily like a good-natured Arlong.

"Huh?" said Lucy, confused as to why she wasn't moving.

I sweatdropped at my captain's stupidity and naivety. She'd gotten herself stuck.

"Baka," I reprimanded her. "Don't do stupid things like that if you don't have a backup plan."

"I didn't think I'd get stuck," she pouted.

"How dare you go that to our crew!" Pinkie cursed.

Gorilla Chest cracked his knuckles. "Guess we'll have to get our hands dirty now."

"I think we need to teach them the difference between our species, chu," a tall blue fishman agreed calmly. He had a long mouth that made him resemble Usopp in a strange way, and his cheeks looked permanently blushed.

A fourth one nodded. "I need to pound some sense into my kin as well," he said, motioning to me. He was the ugliest of the ugly, and fins on his arms, head, and back, which must have made it hard to wear shirts. His hair was orange and his skin was striped yellow and white, so he looked like a clown fish.

I shuddered. Clowns... not good. I hated clowns... but that's a story for another day.

Zoro smirked and put a hand on Wado Ichimonji. "Well, I guess the main forces have finally shown their faces."

"Arlong-san, please just stay right where you are," Gorilla Chest said.

Long Mouth stepped up. "If you fought out of range, Arlong Park would turn to dust, chu."

"We'll take care of them!" Pinkie promised.

"Yeah, do whatever you like." Arlong shrugged nonchalantly.

I grinned. "Four bad guys, five Straw Hats."

"I've got Arlong, you guys take them out." Lucy ordered.

We nodded and I changed my statement. "Four bad guys, _four_ Straw Hats."

Suddenly pinkie took a huge breath and leaned backward, his stomach expanding. I got a chilled feeling in the back of my neck, as though new liquid was being created. I frowned, wondering what it could mean and what Pinkie was doing. While Zoro pointed out the octopus thing was up to something and Sanji started discussing how he would cook octopus, I drew water out of the rectangular pool and wrapped it around my arm in case I needed a quick defense.

"That ain't an octopus, he only has six tentacles," I pointed out.

Sanji shrugged. "Squid, then. It'd still be a good appetizer."

"Uh, hey guys, can you help me - -" Lucy began, but was cut off by Pinkie.

"Take this!" the squid fishman yelled. "Zero Visibility! Tako-Hachi-Black!"

'Zero Visibility?' That didn't sound good.

Suddenly the fishman tilted forward and opened his mouth widely. A jet stream of black liquid was expelled from his mouth and fired straight toward us. I didn't have much time to react, but I pulled more water from the ocean and hurriedly wrapped it around my whole body.

"Water Body!" I called, making up the name in about a second.

SPLASH! The black liquid fell all over us, but simply slid off me since I had a thin layer of water around me. Zoro and Sanji had managed to dive out of the way before it reached us, but Lucy, still stuck in the concrete, got a full blast of the stuff.

"You baka!" Zoro cursed as he sat up and I sent the water away. "Why didn't you dodge it?!"

"Ahhhh!" Lucy screamed in a panic, putting her hands to her face. She was covered in the black stuff, which had stuck to her body like paint or... ink. "I can't see!"

"You guys didn't notice and I didn't have time to do anything about!" I spat. "She's..." But I was cut off.

"And to finish you off..." Pinkie said, grabbing a humongous chunk of rock that had previously been part of an overhang but was now lying on the cement foundation because of Lucy's stupidity.

"Hey, Lucy!" Usopp gasped, and I turned to see him cowering behind a pillar again. "Run away!"

"That's what we've been trying to say!" I gulped.

Lucy pouted and pointed at her feet, crunched so deep into the cement that she couldn't get out even though she was rubber. "I'm stuck! My feet won't come out!"

"Baka!" Usopp reprimanded her. "Didn't you stick them in there in the first place!?"

Zoro facepalmed, a dark aura flowing out from him... or maybe it was just the shadow thrown over us from the piece of overhang. "Baka... what was she thinking...?"

"Tako-Hachi-Black on the rocks!" Pinkie announced.

-SMASH!-

The rock split cleanly in two just before it hit our heads. I gasped in awe and the squid-man let out an "eh?" of confusion. There, standing in front of Lucy protectively with his leg held high in the air, was none other than Sanji, who had apparently just delivered a kick powerful enough to break a piece of rock as wide as the roof of a small house in half.

"Sugoi..." I murmured, effectively humbled by the cook's leg power.

Sanji glared at the octopus. "_Never_ try to hurt a lady. That's just bad manners."

"Oh, Sanji!" Lucy cheered. "That was awesome! Nice one, nice one!"

The piece of rock on the right crashed to the cement next to me, just barely missing me. I gulped and scooted away from it. That thing had almost taken my head off!

"Whoa, he's awesome!" Usopp approved.

Sanji smirked and adjusted his cigarette. "Well, at least it's better than being with a lowlife crew that is willing to hurt ladies."

"Ladies?" Gorilla Chest mused, stepping forward. "Trying to win over that straw hat girl? Or did you people come all the way here for 'that kind' of woman? Ha! You guys make me laugh."

"'That kind' of woman?" Sanji repeated, eying the fishman. "Say that about Nami-san again and I'll cook you in a buttered frying pan. I'll make you into a Meuniere, fishman!"

I tilted my head, confused. "What's a Meuniere?"

They ignored me. "You look like you could fight... for a human. But a kaizokou who only fights with chivalry can only be mediocre."

"Why don't you see for yourself whether my chivalry is mediocre or not? I was raised by an unbeatable pirate."

Gorilla Chest cracked his knuckles and said something else, but I was distracted from their conversation when the orange-and-white striped fishman stepped up, his blue shirt with green flowers fluttering in the wind. He looked at my shirt, then looked at me pointedly. "Oi, Pac Man."

I blinked. "You know what Pac Man is?"

"Sure do. I'm a demigod like you. I've been told about other universes by my friends in the immortal underworld."

I narrowed my eyes. Another demigod, a fishman, who joined with Arlong's crew? This could get a bit dicey. "Why did you join Arlong?" I asked. "He's evil and only cares about killing humans and making money."

"That about sums it up," the fishman demigod agreed. "But he's powerful and has fair reasons."

"No reason makes killing okay."

He shrugged indifferently. "Perhaps, perhaps not. Depends on how you raised." Then he smirked and cracked his own knuckles. "I was raised to hate Aeso, and I can smell him on your blood! I shall make our father pay!"

Wait... _our_ father? "So are you a son of Aeso, too?" I gasped. Then blinked. It made sense. He _was_ a fishman, after all. But, hold the phones! Did that make this enemy my half brother?

"You got it in one," said the fishman, sounding vaguely pleased. "You are following our father's wishes. That means you must die."

I gulped. Water versus water. Our powers would cancel each other out, and no one would win. Who knows? We could fight so long we might even kill one another. Then I thought of something, and my hand strayed to the object strapped to my side. Actually, I _did_ have something my 'half brother' did not...

Usopp attempted to pull Lucy out by wrapping his arms around her awkwardly and walking backwards, but she said, "Still ain't coming free." She picked her nose, and I blanched in disgust.

"Eh? Can't you pull them out yet?" he complained, his long nose twitching in annoyance.

"Not yet. I don't think I can get out just by stretching."

"ARE YOU EVEN TRYING?!"

"Try retracting your legs," I offered.

"PAY ATTENTION TO PEOPLE WHEN THEY'RE TALKING TO YOU!" the fishman demigod yelled angrily. He picked up a smaller piece of overhang and tossed it at me, but I smashed it to pieces with a quick and well-placed Tempest Fist. A bead of sweat trickled down my cheek. I was really hot, but for some reason that wasn't making me more tired... in fact, if anything, I felt like I had more energy than ever.

Pinkie picked up a piece of overhang, too, and prepared to toss it at Usopp and Lucy, but was halted by Zoro, who offered to be his opponent.

So Gorilla Chest was going after Sanji, Pinkie the Squid was paired with Zoro, and the other demigod was gunning for me. That left Usopp and the sky blue, long-mouthed dude. Just as I was thinking this, Usopp accidentally let go of Lucy, who retracted to her feet, continued to the other side because of the force, and smacked into Long Mouth, who fell back and rolled a couple of feet. He got up, muttering curses at Usopp.

"What an idiot..." I muttered to myself, my eye twitching.

"I'm back to where I started from," Lucy noted.

Usopp cried anime tears and ran away, out of Arlong Park, and the blue fishman scrambled to his feet and chased after them. I raised an eyebrow. Actually, that was a smart thing to do. With all these battles going on, it was going to be a tight fit in here. I nodded and turned back to the new addition to Arlong's crew.

"Whaddya say we take this battle outside, too?" I offered. "It's a bit cramped in here."

He sneered evilly. "Sure thing, _aniki_."

We nodded in unison and headed out of Arlong Park, leaving Sanji and Zoro to tend to Lucy's little problem. As we ran out of the complex, Long Mouth was thrown over our heads in a cocoon of flames, cursing Usopp's heart out. The liar was a little ways down the path, announcing that _he_ was the dude's opponent.

I grinned at Usopp, giving him the 'peace out' sign. Then my fishman brother and I headed off for the marshes of Conomi Islands.

* * *

**Chapter 13 complete! So, how do you like THEM APPLES?! In a strange twist, it turns out Aeso has another demigod son who is living in the One Piece world, but is a clown fish fishman! How will this battle turn out? Fishman karate mixed with demigod powers VS a weapon from Aeso and demigod powers, plus a little something extra I gave the new enemy... :D On a side note, I have decided to do a series of one shots involving Damon and the Straw Hat crew in their every day lives. This is entitled OP Full Blast: Straw Hat Snippets and can be found by accessing my author page, or whatever the hell it's called. Personally, I forget, and I don't care, so don't bother correcting me.  
**

Damon: That fishman brother of mine... just what the hell is he thinking?! Why did he side with the enemy? Well, at least I'll get a good battle...

Sanji: I'm gonna cook up these fishmen and serve 'em to the villagers.

Usopp: AH! CANNIBAL!

Lucy: Uh, guys? I'm kinda drowning over here...

Damon: EH?! When the hell did that happen!?

Zoro: Where's that bastard demigod when you need him?

**Don't forget to follow/favorite if you liked my story, as it makes everyone happy. Leave a review saying what you liked or what I can change! And finally, check out OP Full Blast: Straw Hat Snippets! Merry Christmas, everybody, and a Happy New Year!**

**P.S. A virtual cookie goes to everyone who likes Straight No Chaser! They're an awesome group...**

**-TheRealEvanSG**


	14. No 14: The Battle in the Marshes!

**BOO YAH! Damon's second battle has finally arrived! How will he possibly defeat another person who has the same demigod powers as he does? Will the battle be a victory, a loss, or even a stalemate? Why did the fishman side with Arlong? All these questions and more shall be answered in this chapter! Now, my replies to reviews on the last chapter:**

**Shinari-Chan:** Here you go! :D

**Chapter 14 start!**

* * *

The Battle Over the Marshes!

Waves of Fury VS Hounds From Hell  


* * *

**Previously on ****One Piece Full Blast:**

_"Whaddya say we take this battle outside, too?" I offered. "It's a bit cramped in here."_

_He sneered evilly. "Sure thing, _aniki_."_

_We nodded in unison and headed out of Arlong Park, leaving Sanji and Zoro to tend to Lucy's little problem. As we ran out of the complex, Long Mouth was thrown over our heads in a cocoon of flames, cursing Usopp's heart out. The liar was a little ways down the path, announcing that he was the dude's opponent._

_I grinned at Usopp, giving him the 'peace out' sign. Then my fishman brother and I headed off for the marshes of Conomi Islands._

As we dashed across the countryside of the Conomi Islands, stepping in marshes, cursing a lot, and dodging haphazard rodents, I called to the fishman behind me, "So just who the hell are you, anyway, and what's your beef with humans?"

I felt a tingle in my chin and looked over my shoulder to see water droplets flying to me at high speed. Remembering that fishmen could throw water and make the droplets feel as strong as bullets, I jumped, turned a full 360, and threw my arm out, yelling, "Mimic!" A curl of water exploded of the nearest marsh and tore through the air behind me, just in time to block the water-bullets.

"Not too bad, dodging my Water Shot," said the fishman as I fell to the ground and came up rolling. "The name's Fennu, by the way."

"Digger D. Damon," I supplied. I heard him snicker behind me and my eye twitched. "Look, I didn't ask to be named that! I just was!"

"Here's good," he said, and I skidded to a stop.

There was a tense moment where neither of us moved, just sized each other up. Then, as though we were on the same mental wavelength, we both attacked at the same time.

Fennu gripped his hands together, wrapped them in water, and yelled, "Fishman Karate: Sledgehammer!" He raised them high above his head like going for a downward cut with a sword, and then brought his hands smashing down.

"Tempest Boxing!" I called, wrapping a layer of water around my arms and hands. I thrust my hands up in an X-block and managed to trap his own hands. I threw them to my left, opening him up, and drove my fist into his chest. His eyes widened, and I pounded him relentlessly.

Finally I ended the brutal attack, panting. I smirked at Fennu, who had started to fall backwards, but then did a double-take as he suddenly stopped and threw a double punch at me.

"Whoa!" I yelped, throwing myself to the side.

"Water Shot Gatling Gun!" said Fennu, and I regained my balance only to have a relentless barrage of high-powered water droplets pound into me. Pain flared through my body as it shook with the force of the attack. I nearly bit my tongue.

Finally, the fishman ran out of water and I dropped to the wet ground, writhing in agony.

"Ha! Take that," he remarked.

I looked ahead, a fire of pain pervading my nerves. A marsh, filled with deep water, was only a foot away from me. I remembered falling into the ocean at the Baratie. If I could make it into the marsh...

But Fennu had obviously realized what I was thinking, because he said, "Oh, no, you don't."

-WHAM!-

A bone crunching kick was delivered to my side, wrapped in a little water as well, and I was thrown into the air, coughing blood. I careened to the ground, but luckily fell into one of the nearby marshes with an enormous splash.

"Dammit," Fennu muttered.

As I lay there, submerged in a shallow pond of water, I grimaced. This was a demigod I was facing, and he had the same powers as me. He was far more experience than me in the art of fighting with water, and to make things worse, he was a fishman. They had an advantage whenever it came to the sea.

I felt the water giving me strength. It seeped through my pores and repaired the damage that bastard brother of mine had done to my body. I stopped panting, the sour taste of blood washed out of my mouth, and I grew more energized again. I sat up, effectively healed, but what I saw when I wiped the water out of my eyes made my breath get caught in the back of my throat.

Huge black dogs were sitting patiently by Fennu's side. By their other features, though, I could tell they were mastiffs. Now, when I say huge, I mean _HUGE!_ The hounds had to be at least the size of a truck, dwarfing their master by far. And when I say black, I mean they looked as though they had taken the night sky (minus the stars), made it into clothes, and wore it.

"What are they?" I whimpered. Yes, whimpered. Why? It could have something to do with their glowing red eyes, but I couldn't be sure.

Fennu smirked. "Hellhounds. I called them out of Hell to kill you before you can make it into a body of water. They're Archetypes, which are monsters that can be dispelled to the pits of Hell but cannot actually die."

"Like the monsters in Percy Jackson," I gulped.

He nodded. "Pretty much."

I paled and my hand crept to the blade hanging by my side - - what had Lady Venticus called it? Chew Your Hell Off? No, wait, Chiwohiku. I had a feeling my new addition would be vital to my survival now.

Then the hellhounds roared and all rational thought escaped me except this: GET THE FUCK OUT OF THERE!

I shouted in fright, scrambled to my feet, and took off over the marshes, panting in fear of the massive monsters behind me. They snarled and dripped poisonous saliva which killed the grass around it, turning the grass to a sickly brown color. If that spit got on me - - well, I didn't even want to think about the consequences.

I stumbled over the swamp-like field, splashing through shallow ponds to renew my energy and skirting around the deeper ones to save time. The hellhounds never relented. They would snap at my heels and I would pause to smack them away with a quick geyser of water, but I was getting nowhere. They just kept closing in.

I leaped into a marsh, imagined it hardening, and ran across it to the middle, where I turned and drew Chiwohiku. I had no idea how to use it, except for a few vague memories of fencing in gym class years ago, but I figured I'd learn by instinct or die. That was how it had been the last time. Plus, I knew he was right. I couldn't outrun these beasts much longer. Eventually, they'd sink their teeth into me and I would become a giant sized dog biscuit.

Not the greatest way to die.

The hellhounds had faltered at the edge of the deeper marsh, unwilling to go forward. Perhaps they had a fear of water, or maybe my drawn blade was giving them the heebie jeebies. Whatever the case, they had momentarily ceased their chase and given me time to regroup.

First, I examined Chiwohiku. Now that the sheathe was off, I could see it was a thick blade, blue in color and narrow at the top, tapered to a point. It gleamed in the sunlight, and I thought I could feel an air of energy around it. I frowned - - what kind of sword was blue? - - but pointed it at each hellhound. They were pawing the water, unsure whether to follow me in or wait for me to make an escape.

Instead of making an escape, I directed my thoughts to the water in the marsh below me, ordering it to pressurize beneath my feet. I felt the pressure build up under me, and then I released it all with one thought, yelling, "Tempest Rocket!" I shot off in the direction of the hounds, throwing my arm back for a swing of the sword.

As I passed through the monster pack, they tried to bite at me, but I swiped with Chiwohiku and they backed off quickly. I twisted so my feet were aimed at the ground. When I landed, the bottoms of my Adidas sneakers were torn up a little, but I skidded to a stop.

"So you decided to fight at last?" laughed Fennu. "Ha! You won't last three seconds."

The dogs barked at each other, but the biggest one snarled and the others backed off. I assumed this was the pack leader. If I could beat him, maybe his friends would run with their tails between their legs. As the truck-sized mastiff loomed over me, charging me with poison spit and deadly sharp fangs, I ducked, rolled between the creature's legs, and swiped with my blue blade.

With a sickening SHUNK, I cut through it's front left leg, which thumped to the ground, dark blood spilling everywhere. A lick of fire ignited at the top of the severed stump and burned down, leaving nothing but a pile of ashes. The hellhound roared in pain and tried to stop and turn to me, but having one less leg didn't do it any favors and it nearly fell over.

I was left wondering, _How the hell did I do that?_

The other hounds snarled in anger and crept forward, shaking the swampy ground with each step, but the alpha barked again and they backed off, though they clearly didn't like it.

I came out of the roll and turned, raising Chiwohiku for another attack. I backed into a marsh and it charged again, sloppily this time due to only having three legs, I released another Tempest Rocket and soared through the air. The giant mutt's momentum worked in my favor, and it couldn't move to the side quick enough. As I passed over it, I remembered years of playing baseball at the Al Oeter Recreation Center Outdoor Field in Manhattan. I threw Chiwohiku with all my might, imagining it slicing through the air directly into the beast.

I let out a scream as I fell through the air.

I heard a roar of agony and splashed down safely in a marsh, grinning and no longer afraid. Somehow I had did it. I turned and saw it wrapped in flames, burning down to ashes as Chiwohiku dropped to the ground and stuck there, quivering. I figured that whenever the monsters got a killing blow, they burned down to flames, and if something got cut off them, it would burn down, too.

I had no idea what I was doing, but it was pretty damn awesome.

Excuse my language.

"No way..." Fennu gasped. "No freakin' way! An inferior human brought down the Hound of the Baskervilles? But... But that's impossible."

"I'M A FREAKIN' PIRATE!" I shouted over the crazed snarling of the other hounds. "SCREW IMPOSSIBLE! I DON'T FOLLOW THE RULES!"

The underling dogs... underdogs?... all charged me at once, biting and snarling and gnashing their wickedly sharp teeth. I gulped. I'd been placing my hopes on their dependence on their leader, but apparently they wanted revenge for his death, and I was now weaponless. All I had to defend myself with was my own two hands and the water in the marshes. I yelped and backed further in the shallow marsh, wishing Chiwohiku would be like Percy Jackson's Riptide and reappear in its sheathe or something.

No such luck.

"Damn blade!" I cursed, and threw out my thoughts to the water all around me, trying to command them to my will. Keyword here being 'trying.' Something was interfering with my thoughts, and the marshes weren't responding. I looked up. The hounds were almost upon me, poison saliva killing the grass no less than two meters away.

"Come on, come on," I muttered, increasing the desperation and power of my thoughts. The interference wavered, and then suddenly broke.

_FWOOM!_ A wall of water roared over my head and came crashing down on the unsuspecting hellhounds, washing them back. As it neared my blue sword, it parted and left the patch dry. Yipping and snarling, the massive mastiffs fell into the marshes in front of me. I saw my chance and ran forward, grabbed Chiwohiku, yanked it out of the ground (it came free with a FWUMP), and jumped into the marshes. I landed on the first of the thrashing monsters and stabbed its chest, back flipped off, and sliced open its brethren. They erupted in flames like their leader.

I stepped out of the marsh and faced my half brother, panting from the effort of defeating the monsters... what had he called them? Archetypes?

Fennu was staring at me in a strange mixture of admiration and utter hatred.

"How d'ya like them apples?" I said triumphantly.

"N-No way..." The clown fish fishman stuttered. "There's no way you could've defeated all of the Greek hellhounds. It's just impossible. It defies nature. No hero has achieved such a feat since the ancient times!"

I dipped Chiwohiku into a marsh to wash the dark monster blood off of it and approached my half brother. "Now, before I kill you, I wanna know that I have a good reason for doing so," I announced. "Tell me why you hate humans and joined Arlong's crew."

He narrowed his eyes and backed away, drawing water from the marshes and wrapping it around himself protectively. "I joined Arlong's crew because they promised the two things that are the most important to me: Revenge and money. I was offered a place in the Senshi's army, but I declined because they wouldn't give me any belli."

"So you're just greedy," I summed up. "You kill defenseless humans for money. You hurt one of my nakama as a means to this end."

"Hai," he confirmed. He got in a fighting stance. "What are you gonna do about it? You're still injured from our previous fight. The water didn't heal you all the way. It never does. I know."

My side ached from my corrupt brother's kick. He was right. The water _hadn't_ totally healed me, unlike the time at the Baratie. For some reason, in the last second, the power of the water had abandoned me. But it didn't matter. I had still been able to defeat those giant poisonous dogs in this state. Next to them, Fennu seemed like an insignificant ant.

"I have a message for you," I said, after I got an idea for a cool catch phrase for myself. "Because you have sinned too much and become corrupted, the gods have abandoned you. They no longer protect you from your enemies. Fennu of the fishmen, this is the day God has set for you to die."

And with that, I charged him and plunged my blade into his chest. It burst through the thin layer of water, slowed a little, and speared his chest. It stopped, and I pulled it out of his chest. The end of it had was dripping red blood, and I felt a little sick in my stomach. Then I glanced at Fennu, and almost threw up. His face had lost nearly all its color, and his chest was pouring buckets. Shock was written all over his expression.

"How..." he muttered, staring at nothing, eyes wide with fear and confusion. "This isn't... possible..." he coughed blood. He gave a shuttering, rasping groan, and, eyes dimming, fell face first into the swampy muck.

"Oh, gods..." I gasped, backing away in horror. "What the hell have I done? I just... I just killed someone!" In anime, when a bad guy was defeated forever, there was an overwhelming sense of triumph. None of that was coming now. I'd felt it at the Baratie, but maybe it was because I couldn't actually see the body after I'd beaten Ug Lee. Now, however, with the gruesome corpse right in front of me, I realized something.

This wasn't an anime, no matter how much it seemed like that. This was real life. When you stab someone in the heart, they die. Their eyes don't close like they always do in the movies, they just keel over and... their life ends. Bile rose in my throat. I bent over the nearest marsh and was sick. The stench of sour throw-up filled my nostrils and I chucked up my lunch again.

"Oh, gods," I groaned.

I picked myself up off the ground and tried to delete the memory of Fennu's body lying on the ground like that, of him staring at nothing, his eyes wide with panic and horror and fear. I couldn't. It was as though my mind was an SD card that the memory was permanently burned onto.

I washed my blade in another, cleaner marsh, cleansing it of Fennu's lifeblood. I stuck it back in its sheath and almost threw up again, but managed to force it back down this time. The true horror of the moment still fresh in my mind, I cleared my brain and walked off in a random direction (having forgotten which way I came from), once again letting fate carry me back towards Arlong Park.

* * *

**Yuck. Just yuck. For all of you wimps out there, sorry, but I had to make that last part a bit gory. The fanfiction wouldn't be realistic otherwise. I mean, come on, if you'd just killed someone, you'd throw up too. I'd heard stories from veterans of wars of how they felt on the battlefield, and decided to mix it into my story to make it believable and even more unlike the other OC-falls-into-One-Piece fanfics out there. Anyway, hope you liked it!  
**

Damon: Ugh... That was so not cool... Kicking those stupid dogs' asses? _That_ was cool. Killing Fennu? _Not_ cool.

Lucy: Hey, guys, still stuck over here!

Sanji: I'm coming for you, Lucy-CHWAN!

Damon: Don't even think about advancing on her, bastard.

Sanji: EH? What was that, Spaz?

Damon: Dartboard!

Sanji: Kuso-psychic!

Damon: Ero-cook!

Usopp: Eh... this could take a while...

**For more One Piece Full Blast awesomeness, or to be aware of it, at least, follow or favorite my story! Either way will get you an update on new chapters. I think favoriting will... eh... whatevs. Anyway, if you want to read about things like randomness on the Going Merry or even some flashbacks from Damon, check out Straw Hat Snippets! It's a companion to my fanfiction and is all about the everyday life of the Straw Hat crew. The second one shot explains Damon's fear/hatred of clowns.**** Oh, and this has nothing to do with the companion story, but leave a review on what you liked about this fight scene! Thought Damon was too overpowered? Thought it was an epic battle? Have a future recommendation for me? Leave a review about it!  
**

**-TheRealEvanSG**


	15. No 15: Operation Distract Arlong!

**Uh-huh! Merry Christmas everybody! The Arlong Arc is almost finished, and soon the Straw Hats will set sail for Loguetown, but first they must defeat the fishman leader himself. Replies to reviews on the previous chapter:**

**Undying Soul98:** I had so much fun writing it though... XD Oh well. Don't worry, he'll be pretty much useless on winter islands and at Arabasta, because of the properties of water and because Crocodile stole all the water from the atmosphere at Arabasta.

**gamelover41592: **I'll remember what we talked about on PM'ing. ;)

**Chapter 15 start! (Whoa, it's already chapter 15?)**

* * *

Operation Distract Arlong!  


Lucy's Battle Commences!  


* * *

**Previously on ****One Piece Full Blast:**

_This wasn't an anime, no matter how much it seemed like that. This was real life. When you stab someone in the heart, they die. Their eyes don't close like they always do in the movies, they just keel over and... their life ends. Bile rose in my throat. I bent over the nearest marsh and was sick. The stench of sour throw-up filled my nostrils and I chucked up my lunch again._

_"Oh, gods," I groaned._

_I picked myself up off the ground and tried to delete the memory of Fennu's body lying on the ground like that, of him staring at nothing, his eyes wide with panic and horror and fear. I couldn't. It was as though my mind was an SD card that the memory was permanently burned onto._

_I washed my blade in another, cleaner marsh, cleansing it of Fennu's lifeblood. I stuck it back in its sheath and almost threw up again, but managed to force it back down this time. The true horror of the moment still fresh in my mind, I cleared my brain and walked off in a random direction (having forgotten which way I came from), once again letting fate carry me back towards Arlong Park._

**3rd Person P.O.V.**

It was an unusually hot day in the Conomi Islands, but that wasn't the reason why all the villagers were sweating. No, the reason was that they were watching an incredibly crazy battle concerning people who were so strong it shouldn't even be possible. To the villagers, who were all gathered at the entrance of Arlong Park, it was as though they were seeing something from another world.

One of their number happened to look behind them. She gasped and said to her friends, "Look! It's the brown haired guy from earlier who was holding the sword and controlling water!"

"What?!" said the village doctor.

Another man sighed in relief and turned to look at the kid. "So he's okay. That's good."

"He doesn't look too good, though," the doctor noted. All the villagers looked at the pirate. He was right. The kid's shirt was all ripped up, and he was covered in black and red blood. He had a bruise visible on his side through his ripped shirt and his eyes were wide with horror, noticeable even from this far away. It looked like he was gonna throw up.

"Hey, is he gonna be alright?" someone asked.

His friend standing next to him nodded. "He looks like he's been stuffed in a washing machine."

"What's a washing machine?"

"Who knows."

"I don't think all that blood is his," the doctor put in. "If he's only as injured as it looks from that bruise and those cut wounds on his body, he should be fine in a few days."

The kid stopped stumbling over the field and bent over, throwing up.

"What happened to him?" one of the villagers asked.

The doctor closed his eyes and bent his head. "Probably shock. He must've had his first kill. For any normal person, that's an understandable reaction. Still, the wounds will have to be disinfected and that bruise will have to be tended to... he'll probably have some scars, too..."

The villagers turned away from the kid and looked at his friends. Zoro was lying, injured on the cement foundations of Arlong Park and Sanji was still locked in battle with Kuroobi, the fishman with giant muscles, a long ponytail, and protruding elbows, though they'd just come out of the water and Sanji had nearly won. Arlong was still sitting against the fence, glaring at the two pirates.

**Damon's P.O.V.**

"Ugh, that was disgusting," I muttered, wiping my mouth clean of puke. I still had a sour taste from it, though, and would have to take a glass of water the first chance I got.

I stood up and stumbled over to the road that led to Arlong Park. A hundred meters away, all the villagers were watching the battles inside. I wondered what time frame I was on now. Had Zoro already won his battle? What about Sanji? I pushed through the villagers and saw Johnny and Yosaku kneeling on the ground, glaring out at sea like they'd wanted to go there but couldn't for some reason.

I looked up and saw Sanji beating up that Gorilla Chest bastard's ass. I tried to remember the dude's name from the anime. What was it...? Ah, never mind. Zoro was kneeling in front of the rectangular pool, panting and holding the wound he'd gotten from Mihawk. He didn't look very good, but then again, I didn't look much better, probably.

"Mutton Shot!" Sanji roared, and delivered a stunningly powerful fly kick to his opponent. _WHAM__! _The fishman was sent flying and smashed through the walls of Arlong Park, clear to the other side. My jaw dropped. That was one powerful kick!

"Ah, Damon-aniki!" Yosaku said, noticing my arrival. "Damon-aniki, you've gotta help! Lucy-aneki is trapped under water, thrown into the sea and stuck in a cement block! She's gonna drown!"

My eyes widened and I looked down at Yosaku. "WHAT?!"

I glared at Arlong, knowing by instinct and sudden anime memory that he'd been the perpetrator. I clenched my fists and swaggered forward as Sanji knelt next to Zoro. "Oi, fish stick bastard!" I called, glaring and pointing at Arlong. "What the hell did you do to my captain?!"

"Kuroobi," he muttered. "Hatchi. Fennu."

"In the end they're just 'seafood salad,'" Sanji remarked smoothly, stuffing his feet into his black designer shoes. "A fish taking on a cook? Never in a hundred years. So you won your battle, eh, kuso-psychic?" He turned to Arlong, too, and squeezed his hand into a fist triumphantly. "This game is ours!"

Arlong got to his feet and stepped forward, a look of pure and utter hatred in his eyes. His webbed fingers shook with anger and he spat, "You bastards! You killed so many of my beloved brethren... One after the other! Don't you think you've gotten a little caught up in the moment!?"

"Caught up in the moment?" I growled. "Killed your beloved brethren? You killed more humans than we have fishmen, you bastard! If I had to take a guess, I'd say your old captain, Jinbei, would've thought this was a fair trade!"

His pupils dilated in anger. "JINBEI?! That good-for-nothing, flower-picking, weak old bastard?! I don't give a shit of what he thinks! He's a traitor to fishmen! A damned man who is doomed to Hell for the things he's done!"

A wave of anger roared in my ears - - no, not an emotion, a literal _wave_. Water rose up from the pool and barreled into Arlong, pushing him back into a piece of overhang. He sat up looking totally fine.

"DON'T YOU DARE CALL JINBEI A TRAITOR IN FRONT OF ME!" I exploded. "JINBEI WAS ALWAYS ONE OF MY IDOLS! EVEN THOUGH HE'S A FISHMAN, HE'S TOTALLY AWESOME AND WILLING TO LOOK PAST THE DIFFERENCES IN OUR RACES TO SEE THAT, HALF-FISH OR NOT, EVERYONE IS EQUAL!"

Sanji and Zoro were ignoring our shouting match, getting ready to dive into the pool to save Lucy.

"I'll distract him with Damon," the swordsman offered, though he looked like he didn't like it.

Sanji nodded. "Arigatou." He dived into the pool as Zoro got up.

"JINBEI DIDN'T DESERVE TO BE CALLED A FISHMAN!" bellowed Arlong. "HIS SINS WERE TOO GREAT! HE DIDN'T EVEN COMPARE TO FISHER TIGER! WHAT DID JINBEI EVER DO?!"

"FISHER TIGER WAS THE SAME WAY!" I fumed. "HE DIDN'T JUST SET FREE FISHMAN SLAVES, HE SET FREE THE HUMAN SLAVES, TOO! IT DIDN'T MATTER TO HIM WHAT RACE THEY WERE! IN HIS VIEW, EVERYONE DESERVED EQUAL FREEDOM!"

"ALL HUMANS EVER DID TO US WAS KILL US AND ENSLAVE US! NEXT TO THAT, A FEW DEATHS IS NOWHERE NEAR JUST PUNISHMENT!"

"TEMPEST FIST!" I roared, wrapping water around my fist and throwing a powerful hay-maker at Arlong. Nothing happened, though. My arm was suddenly stopped and my fist exploded in pain. The fishman leader had simply raised his hand, blocked, and crunched down.

"YARGH!" I screamed, tears building in my eyes. Arlong released me and I stumbled backward, nursing my right hand. It felt as though it were on fire, like the hellhounds I'd killed not too long ago. I could hardly move my fingers without licks of pain igniting. "IT... IT FUCKIN' HURTS!"

"Weakling," the shark fishman spat. "How the hell Fennu lost to you, I have no idea."

"Bastard..." I gasped, willing myself not to cry. "You... You bastard... I won't... Let you get away with this..."

_SLAM!_ A fist exploded into my face and I was thrown backward, soaring through the air and smashing through the wall behind me. I hit the ground hard and rolled a few feet until I stopped, laying on the ground and coughing blood, my whole body roaring in pain.

"Dammit..." I cried, clutching my side, which still ached from Fennu's kick. "I am I really... this weak...?"

"DAMON!" I heard Zoro shout angrily. "WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING?! STAND UP AND FIGHT, BAKA!"

My vision was flickering, fading in and out from darkness. I squeezed my eyes shut, forcing myself not to cry. I struggled to get up to a kneeling position, and even that seemed to take all my energy. Still, I pressed on, remembering Nami crying and looking so desperate. No way would I let Arlong live after he hurt my nakama so badly! There would be hell to pay! The thought drove away some of the pain and I shakily stood up, swaying and almost falling again.

"He's alive!" one of the villagers shouted in surprise.

"But that punch was enough to decimate Susan's mansion..." someone else muttered.

"These people must be monsters! Just who the hell are they?"

"You wanna know who we are...?" I rasped, coughing more blood. "WE! ARE! PIRATES!" As I yelled the last part to the heavens, a warm breeze danced across the road, rippling my torn-up shirt. The villagers muttered amongst themselves. I somehow made my way back to Arlong Park, but as I did so, a pained shout rose up.

"Not good," I gasped. "That was Zoro!"

I pushed through the crowd to see Zoro laying on his back on the cement, blood trickling out of the corners of his mouth. His eyes were closed. Sanji was kneeling not too far away, body shaking in pain.

"HEY!" I screamed. "WHAT THE FUCKIN' HELL DID YOU TO MY NAKAMA?! ARLONG!"

"Humans," he snorted. "Can't even survive a few water droplets. What inferior beings."

"I feel faint..." Sanji gasped. "Was that a dream...?" He stood up, shaking as badly as me. "I'd even started to have hopes for this battle..."

"That shark dude," Yosaku said behind me. "What's he doing?"

"No clue!" Johnny admitted. "It looked like he was just throwing water around! But then the two of them started bleeding!"

Throwing water around...? I stepped backward, a memory stabbing through my mind like a lightning bolt. Fennu had used an attack like that!

_"Water Shot Gatling Gun!" said Fennu, and I regained my balance only to have a relentless barrage of high-powered water droplets pound into me. Pain flared through my body as it shook with the force of the attack. I nearly bit my tongue._

Had Arlong used an attack similar to that one? If so, then this could get ugly...

Arlong smirked evilly and raised his hand. I could sense water inside it. My eyes widened in horror. In Sanji and my current states, we might not be able to survive another attack like that. I charged forward, sending my thoughts to the ocean, and swept my hand. The ocean mimicked my movements, swooping out of the pool and creating a watery curtain of a shield just in between Arlong and Sanji and myself.

But I was too late.

_WHAM!_ The water smashed into us and we were thrown a foot back, gasping in surprise. It may've just been water, which shouldn't have even been able to hurt me because of my demigodishness, but it felt like a freakin' shotgun! My water shield, released from my mind, splashed down and washed over the cement.

_How can anybody defeat a monster like Arlong?_ I found myself thinking. _If he can cause this much damage with just water..._

"You're lives aren't all that important anyway," Arlong said.

"ARLONG!" a female voice shouted. My eyes widened. It was Nami! I coughed blood and rolled over to get a better view. There was the redheaded navigator, wearing Lucy's straw hat and my leather jacket proudly. She carried her bo staff and her shoulder, the one that had Arlong's mark on it, was bandaged.

"Nami-aneki!" gasped Johnny and Yosaku in unison.

Sanji's body shook. "Nami-chan!"

"Get the fuck away!" I groaned. "You'll just get hurt, and what good will that do?!"

"Ah, Nami!" Arlong laughed. "I was just giving some loser pirates a demonstration of our unbeatable power. What brings you here?" He chuckled, but Nami's expression was set.

"I'm here to kill you," she informed him calmly.

My eyes widened. "EH? If... If Zoro, Sanji and I... couldn't even hurt him... just what makes you think... you can kill him, baka?! At this point... our only hope is Lucy!"

Arlong laughed, pleased. "Ha! Listen to the kid! He's given up all hope!"

"Who said I've given up all hope, fish stick?" I muttered. "I've simply realized... that you're out of my league. But you're still not... invincible. Lucy will beat your ass!"

"So, Nami," he continued, ignoring me. "You say you're here to kill me? JYAHAHAHA! You still haven't given up, unlike these puny humans. How many times have you tried to kill me these past eight years? Murder, poison, assault. Has it ever worked? You should know better than anyone else that we fishmen can't be killed by you humans so easily."

"And she doesn't care!" I cut in, my body shaking in pain. "She keeps trying because she's brave! She's braver than any of us could imagine, because although she's not strong, although she doesn't have the incredible stamina of these guys" - - I motioned to Zoro and Sanji, and Lucy out beyond the fence touching the rectangular pool - - "she still tries her very hardest to save her town! But Nami... you've gotta calm down now. You'll just freakin' die, and then all our effort would be for nothing!"

He stepped on my back and pressed down, making me scream in agony.

"You can never kill me," Arlong agreed. "You can never run away. Nami. You will remain here forever as my cartographer. Besides, you know I've been good to you. I really hope that you'll continue making maps for me, if at all possible. JYAHAHAHA! So how does this sound?

"Because of what's happened here," the bastard said, "I'd normally kill all these people, except you. However." Nami's eyes widened in horror and anger. "If you make a decision now to return to the Arlong Pirate crew, and to continue drawing maps for me... I'll spare the people of Cocoyashi Village." The villagers tensed. "But these pirates _won't_ be spared. They were too foolish." He rolled Sanji aside with his foot, then kicked me into the wall of Arlong Park. I yelled again, and I knew my ribs had shattered. My whole body was on fire. "So, it's your choice. If you choose me, the people of your village will be safe, but the pirates will die. Our you could choose to fight me. But these guys are in such bad shape... I don't think there's anyway that this could _not_ end in tragedy."

My vision was blurred over. I couldn't see what was going on, but I knew whatever it was, it had to be bad from the dialogue.

"We... may have been... defeated..." I admitted, panting with the effort of keeping myself conscious, "but there is still... one other person... that you haven't killed yet..." But my voice was so weak nobody heard me.

"Nami. Are you _my_ nakama, or are you theirs?

"You bastard!" the villagers roared.

"Yeah! No matter what you say, you just want to keep her!"

"Give her a better choice, you fish-faced reject!"

"Everyone!" Nami said over the shouting of her village's people. "I have decided." There was a tense moment in which everyone wondered just what she would say... then her voice yelled, "Will you die with me?"

"YOSHA!" All the villagers exploded.

I smirked. Stupid... ugly... fish stick... Nami had sided with Lucy and us Straw Hats! Ha!

"So you wish to be slaughtered," Arlong mused.

My vision was finally clearing, and I could see Nami turn to us and point her bo staff at Arlong. Suddenly, though, there was an explosion of water and everyone flinched. My neck was tingling in excitement and I looked out to sea. A huge fountain of water was shooting upward, spraying everywhere.

I grinned. Serious shit was about to go down.

"Nani?" Arlong said, turning to the source of the sound as well.

"There she is," Sanji murmured. "All that's left for me is to break that cement block on her feet."

"Nani?" said Zoro, too, rolling over. So he was alive after all. Whatever. I didn't really care either way. "Ah, I get it now."

"Can it be?" Yosaku asked.

He and his friend danced around happily. "Yeah! It's Lucy-aneki!"

"I don't remember putting a fountain over there..." the last fishman in Arlong Park muttered.

"Thirty seconds," Zoro commented. "I can't hold on much longer than that."

I struggled to my feet, swaying. "Me neither."

"Zoro... Damon..." Nami grinned in relief.

"We don't die so easily," I croaked, my mouth tasting sour from coughing blood and my body still on fire.

Sanji kicked off his shoes and dived into the pool before Arlong could react. "Thirty seconds is more than I need!"

The fishman turned to the sea and prepared to follow the cook, but Zoro jumped up and cut a thin line under the bastard's eye. I followed suit, drawing water from the ocean and wrapping it around my arms. Touching the water gave me more strength, and the pain started fading a little. Not much, but enough for me to fight.

"We'll be your opponents!" the two of us announced collectively.

"Lucy isn't what you should be worried about, you half-fish bastard," growled Zoro through Wado Ichimonji, which was being held in his mouth. How he was able to fight like that, I had no idea. He must have some serious neck muscles.

"Didn't I tell you never to use that word again?" Arlong growled. "Looks like you're about finished, Zoro and Damon!"

"Yeah, fish stick," I agreed. "Who you should be worried about is US! TEMPEST BOXING!" I wrapped water around both of my fists and charged, but froze as something flashed out of the corner of my eye. I glanced at the object and saw that it was... a raw egg?

"Sure-Kill Egg Star!" Usopp's voice yelled.

Arlong raised his hand to stop it. The egg smashed and broke all over his hand, a stink raising up in the air. I wrinkled my nose in disgust.

"I've got you covered Zoro, Damon!" claimed Usopp, and I glanced over, looking for him.

"Usopp-aniki!" said Yosaku, looking for him too. "Are you alright?"

"Wow, you're so brave!" Johnny cheered. "Standing up against Arlong with no fear!"

We all found him at the same time and sweatdropped. He was standing behind the hole I'd made when Arlong punched me into the wall a minute ago, giving a thumbs up and grinning. He was covered in dirt, water, and... blood? Ketchup? Knowing Usopp, probably both.

"Yosh!" he agreed. "The great Captain Usopp always fights without fear!"

"WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING OVER THERE?!"

I rolled my eyes. "You call that 'without fear?'"

"Usopp!" Nami said, grinning widely.

The long-nosed sniper laughed. "Ha! Hey, Nami! Check it out! One of their guys - - one of the fishmen was defeated by me! Me, of all people! These mermen are NOTHING!" He pulled his lips out, stretching them like he was Lucy. "He had a face like this... HAHAHA!"

Arlong glared at him in anger. "Chew?! You killed Chew?! You bastard!..."

"You betcha! My appearance signals the climax of this battle! Ha! Get ready for the big finale!"

"Zoro-aniki, Damon-aniki!" Yosaku called, pumping his fist in the air. "Stand fast to stop Arlong!"

Pinkie... no, wait, I just remembered his name from the Fishman Island and Return to Shaboady Arcs! It was Hatchi, right? Yeah, Hatchi! Hatchi struggled to get up, blood dripping out of his mouth, which made me feel a little sick and a little guilty, too. Hatchi was actually a good guy. "Not a chance, you bastards," he groaned.

"Oi, ARLONG!" Usopp shouted. "Over here, you dork!"

"Baka," I sighed, shaking my head.

"Usopp-aniki!"

"Wow, so brave!"

"You dare to stand in my way?" Arlong laughed, turning to the local Marimo. "Very well, you shall be the first to die, Roronoa Zoro. Then I shall kill your friend Damon, and then your long-nosed friend. And finally, if that rubber bitch is still alive, I'll save her for last!"

A flame of anger burned in me. Oh, no he didn't! He did not just call Lucy a bitch!

"Usopp... Rubberband! Now go, Zoro and Damon!" The rubberband he had been aiming simply dropped to the ground in front of the hole. Everyone sweatdropped.

"HEY! WHAT ARE YOU TRYING TO DO?!" Nami shouted, annoyed at his stupidity.

"I will not die." said Zoro, panting. "Allow me to break that ugly nose you love so dearly!" He gave a had cut to the jagged nose and a metallic clang rose up, but either Johnny or Yosaku's sword (I wasn't sure which was which because they looked the same) was stopped by Arlong's nose.

"That's one sharp nose," I muttered.

"Baka!" Arlong snickered. "I love it because it is unbreakable."

"TEMPEST BOXING!" I yelled again, pounding my fists into the fishman's unprotected back. He stepped forward in surprise, but seemed otherwise unhurt by the barrage.

"Ha! What weaklings you two are!" he said. "If you weren't hurt so badly, you might've been able to give me bruises or even a scratch on my nose... but that's not the case now, is it?"

Arlong threw his fist back. It smashed into my chest with a sickening CRUNCH and I was thrown backward again, groaning in pain. I landed hard and slid into a piece of overhang. Then he stabbed downward and ran forward. Zoro managed to block, but he was pushed to the edge of the pool, his eyes glancing down in panic.

"Oi, fish stick bastard!" I called, getting to my feet once again. I wasn't gonna go down without a fight!

"Damon-aniki!" Johnny yelled to me. I blinked and turned. "That squid dude is getting up again!"

"Crap!" the 'squid dude' said. "I thought a rubberband was coming at me!"

"WHAT THE HELL?!" The villagers deadpanned.

"NANI?" Usopp's jaw dropped and he burst into laughter. "Of course I was aiming for him!"

"Didn't you shout 'Arlong?'" Nami pointed out.

"Eh, Hatchi can't fight with those wounds," I said with a shrug. I turned to Arlong and gave a Tempest Fist to the face. He grunted in surprise, and I actually made it powerful enough to throw him into a piece of overhang! Wondering how I did that, I released my tension, panting.

"Arigatou," Zoro said.

"Don't make me save you again, bastard," I muttered. "Oi, fish stick! You're so uncool, you couldn't even get Hyouzou to join you! You promised Fisher Tiger to make peace with humans but seeing as how you basically made them slaves - - well, I guess that goes to show how much a promise to a brother means to you! It's NO WONDER FISHER TIGER'S FAVORITE WAS ALWAYS JINBEI!"

"Why, you..." Arlong growled, giving me a look of pure rage. A shiver of far ran down my spine. "How the hell do you know all of that, bastard?"

"I'M A PSYCHIC!"

"Well, SHUT THE HELL UP!" Arlong threw some water (where did he get that?) at me and I squeaked heroically. _WHAM!_ It smashed into me with all the force of a shotgun and threw me to the side.

"Oi, you alright?" Zoro asked quietly.

"Daijobou," I replied, which meant 'it's fine.' "I'll survive."

"Roronoa Zoro!" said Hatchi, all of his six arms jabbing at the swordsman. "I won't let you get away with this! Watch how I kill your nakama underwater!" He jumped into the rectangular pool and Zoro's eyes widened.

Arlong got to his feet, chuckling and approaching us darkly. "Don't worry," he reassured us. "Don't get frustrated! You'll all be dead soon enough." He suddenly dashed forward and jabbed down with his nose before Zoro had time to react. The swordsman was speared through the shoulder, making him yell in pain and drop Wado Ichimonji and the bounty hunters' swords.

"ANIKI!" Johnny and Yosaku shouted.

"No way!" I gasped. "ZORO!"

* * *

**COMMERCIAL BREAK AT RANDOM SUSPENSEFUL MOMENT! :D**

* * *

"Bastard!" I growled. "Let go of my nakama!" Even if Zoro was a jerk, I didn't want him to die, despite what I said earlier! ...If Zoro reads this, shoot me.

"Done already?" Arlong complained. "So boring. By the way, what's with this huge bandage?" He reached up and even from behind, I saw him rip off the hastily put-on gauze that was covering the wound Zoro got from Mihawk. The unofficial first mate yelled in pain as his wound started bleeding again, now that it was free of the bandages. "Did you fall or something?"

I paled. That was a really bad wound. How the hell was he even able to walk with that? I'd seen people on the streets who couldn't move from less injury than that. Hell, forget walking, he shouldn't even be able to stand! In fact, it was a miracle he was alive at all with a deep cut like that!

Nami gasped and the bounty hunting duo cried, hugging themselves as though they could feel Zoro's pain.

Zoro glared down at the fishman leader defiantly.

Arlong pulled his arm back and released the blood-covered bandages, which fell to the ground.

"If you take it easy," said Zoro weakly, "the wounds won't open."

"That's all you have to say?" the fishman remarked. "You think you're funny, don't you?"

The near-dead Straw Hat smirked. "I don't mean myself. I was talking about the octopus guy."

"Squid," I corrected.

"Whatever. I told you myself - - we've already won this game."

Suddenly, there was a triumphant shout and the back of my neck went crazy. Something was going on underwater... I looked up and noticed a flash of red and black, and a rubbery arm stretching down to us.

"Lucy!" I said, grinning.

"I'm BAAAAAAAACK!" yelled Lucy, flipping crazily through the air.

"Rubber girl!" the villagers called.

"Lucy-aneki!" Johnny cried happily.

Usopp gave an excited "WHOOP!" and fell backwards off the wall he'd been climbing over a second ago.

"Lucy!" Nami gasped.

"That rubber bitch..." Arlong grumbled. I clenched my fist but couldn't do much because I was burning with too much pain.

"You're late, baka," murmured Zoro.

She grabbed Zoro's collar in midair and his face was suddenly frozen in a kind of stupefied, disbelieving horror. "Zoro!" she called. "Switch me places!" With a panicked yell, he was ripped from Arlong's grip and flung backwards through the air. Lucy let go and he went spinning beyond the doors of the rectangular pool.

I burst into laughter. "Ha! That was awesome! Good one, Luce!"

"Yo, Damon!" she shouted.

"YOU MORON!" all the bystanders shouted.

As she descended to the cement, she shouted, "Gum-Gum BELL!" Her neck stretched back into the air and my eyes widened. Unwilling to be an accidental victim, I scrambled to my feet in a panic, ignoring the pain, and dashed over to the villagers.

Not a moment too soon.

BONG! Before Arlong had time to react, Lucy's head snapped forward and connected with his forehead, resulting in the comical sound of a bell ringing. He was thrown back and my captain landed smoothly. She swept her foot out, shouting, "Whip!" Her leg stretched out and threw him to the side in an elastic roundhouse kick that could make even Chuck Norris jealous.

She spun a 360 in midair and landed. Then Lucy immediately followed up by throwing her rubbery arm back as far as she could and pounding it into Arlong's chest. "Gum-Gum Pistol!" She threw more punches with increasing speed as he fell backwards, giving him no time to react. It seemed as though she had multiple arms. It was crazy! "Gum-Gum Gatling!"

The enemy captain's body shook with the force of the punches as I watched in awe. "Take that!" she yelled. "And that! And that! And that!" Finally the relentless barrage ended and he was thrown back into the wall of his home base, smashing it to pieces.

"Done!" Lucy announced as pieces of the complex fell around the bastard.

"Sugoi..." I muttered. The villagers gave shocked gasps and personally, I was with them. After seeing Arlong's power firsthand and in real life, I had even more respect for Lucy then I had when I was watching her in the anime. She was incredibly strong, so strong that if I hadn't seen it in person myself then I wouldn't have believed she could do it.

"Did you think that actually did anything?" said Arlong from under the rubble.

Johnny and Yosaku freaked out. "EH?! NOT EVEN A SINGLE SCRATCH?!"

Lucy cracked her knuckles with an indifferent look. "Nope. Just warming up." She bent over to the side and started stretching. Not the Gum-Gum kind, mind you, the light exercising kind.

The blue skinned fishman sat up, dusting himself off. "What's wrong with you, you pathetic scum?" he commented. "I think you would've been happier sleeping at the bottom of the ocean."

"No, actually, I'm pretty thankful to have been rescued," she corrected him, still stretching.

"Because then you wouldn't have gotten to see how angry I am!" Arlong continued, standing up. "To see my brethren killed by your lame nakama... Soon enough, you're gonna be wishing you had died earlier."

"Lucy-aneki is going to be alright, isn't she?" Yosaku said uncertainly. "All of her attacks did no damage!"

"More importantly, where did Zoro land?!" Johnny fretted.

"Oh, shut it, you two," I sighed. "Lucy'll fine. She just hasn't been properly pissed off yet."

"Go, Lucy!" Usopp shouted. "I've got your back covered!" He stuck his head through the hole and held up his green slingshot.

"I don't think that'll help much," Nami mused.

"Do you know what the difference is between me and you?" Arlong asked Lucy.

Lucy cracked her knuckles some more. "Noses?" she guessed. She got in a fighting stance. "Chins? Oh, I know! The webs." She pointed to the spaces between her fingers.

I sweatdropped and Yosaku wondered, "Is... Is Lucy-aneki trying to joke with Arlong?"

"No, I'm afraid she's quite serious," Johnny said, facepalming.

I nodded in defeat. "Yup, that's Lucy for ya."

"NO!" Arlong roared. "IT'S OUR VERY RACES!" He gnashed at Lucy with his teeth and almost bit her, making the villagers yell in worry and fear, but at the last second she leaped to the side, turned, and leaped backwards, dodging another bite. She managed to dodge five more, and then the fishman's hand shot out and grabbed her around her neck, smashing her into a piece of rubble. Not that the smashing itself did any damage to her; she was rubber.

Arlong opened his mouth wide and went to bite my captain's face off, but she grabbed her head and stretched her neck to the side. His teeth sunk into the cement pillar he'd held her against and lodged there.

"That baka!" Usopp snickered. "He'll bite off his own tongue! His teeth must be..."

Arlong's jaw clenched and then snapped together. The cement pillar shattered and imploded into different-sized chunks of rock. My eyes nearly popped out of my head. What jaw power! How the hell was that even a possibility?!

"He bit the column to pieces!" Yosaku shouted in full-out panic mode.

I hit him over the head, shouting in his ear, "WE CAN SEE THAT, DUMB ASS!"

Lucy scrambled to the side, shouting, "Scary!"

"Behold, for this is the true power of the mermen!" Arlong chuckled, turning to Lucy as the resulting dust cloud cleared. He walked forward. "The Heavens have made a distinction between our two races. The Heavens only gave you humans enough strength to exist below us. You are inferior animals!" He stopped and laughed his ugly JYAHAHAHA laugh. "From the very moment we were created, everything was different. I'll show you just how different we really are!"

Lucy straightened up and grinned widely. "Sure," she challenged. "Show me!" She tilted her head down and said confidently, "But there's no way I'll lose to you mer-people! Because I'm the girl who'll be Queen of the Kaizokou!"

* * *

**Dun dun dun! Serious shit is about to go down in Arlong Park! 'Cause Lucy's back and she's gonna kick Arlong's ass to the moon! Well, I hope you liked this chapter, and I had to make Damon lose badly so that he wasn't a Gary Stu. Anyway, don't forget to leave a review saying what you liked, what you didn't, or what I could change in the future!**

Damon: Yeah! BEAT ARLONG INTO FISH FOOD, LUCY!

Lucy: I'm the girl who'll be Queen of the Kaizokou!

Damon: Uh... you just said that...

Lucy: Oh, right. Yosha! You're going down, Arlong!

Yosaku: Alright! Go aneki!

**For more One Piece Full Blast awesomeness, don't forget to follow/favorite! Although it isn't necessary for me to continue writing this story, it sure would make a great Christmas present. Also, for those of you who are already fans, you can do to things to support me: 1) spread the word. 2) check out my companion one-shot series that is called Straw Hat**** Snippets****. Adios amigos!**

**-TheRealEvanSG**


	16. No 16: Nami, You Are My Nakama!

**Another chapter here already?! This fanfiction is moving by too fast... XD I'M JUST SO PUMPED FOR THIS STORY! I've never felt like this for any other project I've started working on. Maybe it's just because it's One Piece? One Piece is pretty damn legit... speaking of which, I do NOT OWN ONE PIECE. Do I look like some old Japanese guy? Do I look like a genius? NO. ...Well actually you don't know WHAT I look like, so, I have to say this. My replies to reviews on the last chapter:**

**gamelover41592:** Eh? A football stadium? But I thought I was in my house. *frowns deeply and rubs chin* Did I suddenly and unconsciously learn to tesser or something? XD arigatou!

**SugoiAuthorToBe:** Wow, really? I didn't think there was a lot of character development. I just included ways I thought people would really react. XD Yeah, I'm gonna have Zoro train him in swordsman ship and possibly Lucy train him in martial arts and stuffs. I might do a few Straw Hat Snippets on that. But thanks, I try to make my writing as descriptive as possibly. I really consider it an art form, writing. When your pencil dances across a page, you can create just as vivid a picture as Leonardo da Vinci. Yes, there will be future prophecies. There's gonna be another one after the time skip - - hopefully, at least, because at this rate Eiichiro Oda won't have enough time to get more of the New World done before I get to Fishman Island. lol**  
**

**Chapter 16 start! (You do realize I'm like, 42 episodes into the anime already, right? *sweatdrops*)**

* * *

Lucy versus Arlong!  


Nami, You are My Nakama!  


* * *

**Previously on ****One Piece Full Blast****:**

_"Behold, for this is the true power of the mermen!" Arlong chuckled, turning to Lucy as the resulting dust cloud cleared. He walked forward. "The Heavens have made a distinction between our two races. The Heavens only gave you humans enough strength to exist below us. You are inferior animals!" He stopped and laughed his ugly JYAHAHAHA laugh. "From the very moment we were created, everything was different. I'll show you just how different we really are!"_

_Lucy straightened up and grinned widely. "Sure," she challenged. "Show me!" She tilted her head down and said confidently, "But there's no way I'll lose to you mer-people! Because I'm the girl who'll be Queen of the Kaizokou!"_

Arlong picked up a big chunk of cement that had fallen off of his home base. "Pirate Queen?" he repeated, snorting. "You think a mere human like you can become someone like that?" He tossed the piece of rock up and down like it was a pebble. "Can you bite through a column with your power?"

"So what?!" Lucy shouted defiantly. "Don't try showing things off that don't matter!" She threw a punch and smashed a boulder to smithereens, again making my jaw drop. No one I'd ever known, not even Cracked-Up Kane, could destroy such a huge piece of cement with one blow! "I can break that column without having to bite it."

Yosaku laughed and gave her the thumbs up. "Ah! Well said, Lucy-aneki! In the end, the result's the same!"

"You're so stupid!" the shark fishman spat. "The whole human race is pathetic! You couldn't even save yourself in the ocean! You can't do anything!" He bent his knees and dived forward, gnashing with his teeth, but Lucy simply stepped to the side and dodged.

She stretched out and grabbed Johnny and Yosaku's swords, which were still where they'd fallen after Zoro's defeat. My captain retracted her arms, bringing the swords with them, grinning and yelling, "And when I can't do something, I have others with me to help me do it!" She held up the swords and laughed. "Shishishi!"

"When did Lucy learn how to sword fight?" I frowned, tilting my head in confusion.

Nami simply shrugged.

Lucy slashed and hacked, letting out a battle cry, but Arlong simply backtracked and weaved through all her attacks. "Take that, and that, and that, and that!"

"What the hell are you doing now?" Arlong asked, amused. "You're just waving them around."

With one swipe of his keen nose, one of the swords was sent spinning out of Lucy's hand, and it stabbed into the ground a good fifteen feet away. Lucy seemed unperturbed by this.

"I'm not interested in fooling around with you," the fishman sneered. My captain pulled back and attacked again, but he caught it in his mouth and bit down, chomping it to little pieces of tempered steel. "How boring."

"Then eat this!" she shouted, and stretched her arm back. It barreled at Arlong with a rubbery snap and smashed into his face. His eyes widened and he was thrown back. Lucy was lifted off the ground in reaction to the opposite force created by her punch, and she landed smoothly.

The teeth of the enemy captain shattered.

"Arlong's teeth broke!" the villagers gasped.

He dropped to the cement harder than a sack of potatoes.

"Of course I don't know a damn thing about swords, you dumbass!" Lucy bellowed. "I don't know how to navigate, either. I can't cook. I can't control water or see into the future. I can't even lie!"

"Oi!" Usopp complained, drawing his hand across his chin.

"I KNOW THAT I NEED OTHERS TO _HELP_ ME IF I WANT TO KEEP ON LIVING!" she proclaimed.

Arlong still lying on the ground, laughed. "Ha! You sure are useless. How pitiful." He sat up and crossed his hands over his chest. "And such a pathetic girl is their captain? They must really resent you. Why should they risk their lives to save someone like you?" He rubbed his cheek. "Someone they can't be proud of. Why should they have to call you their captain? What _can_ you do?" Arlong stood.

Lucy clenched her fists. "I CAN BEAT THE CRAP OUTTA YA!"

Nami grinned and chuckled happily.

"Yeah, I'll back you up!" Usopp shouted.

I smirked and pointed at her. "Oi, Lucy! If you die, I'm gonna kill ya!"

Nami hit me over the head. "And what sense does _that_ make?!"

"YOSHA!" the villagers cheered. "GO AT IT! KICK HIS ASS, RUBBERGIRL!"

"GO, LUCY-ANEKI!"

"GO GET HIM!"

Arlong looked up and glared at all of us. "SHUT UP! You've got to be joking, weaklings!" His broken teeth popped out of his mouth, only to be replaced by a brand new set on the spot.

"Eh?! His teeth grew back!" Lucy noticed.

"It's because I'm a shark," the bastard explained. "My teeth will grow back over and over, with stronger ones each time!" He ripped out his own set of teeth, making me wince, and another set immediately appeared. "However many times, as many times as I need." He ripped out another pair with his other hand, and yet another set grew back.

I blanched. "Oh, that's just sick," I groaned.

"This is a trait that the Heavens have bestowed on me."

"SUGOI!" my captain exclaimed. My jaw dropped at her stupidity.

"Are you beginning to understand just how superior I am?" Arlong held out his hands with the teeth inside, gnashing the teeth together. My eyes widened. Oh, shit! Now he didn't have one set of those super-strong teeth - - he had _three_! Lucy was in thrice as much danger! The fish stick called out the name of an attack. "Twist Gum!" He threw his arm forward and closed the teeth, almost getting Lucy, but she leaped backwards and out of the way. He pushed forward, punching and gnashing his three teeth, and one attack came so close that the teeth snipped off some of Lucy's red vest.

"Lucy!" I cried.

"Stop that!" she complained. When his body was turned away from her, she grabbed his arm - - the one that had barely missed her - - and tried to trap it, but he just laughed and ripped out of her grip. There was a pause, and then he tore at her repeatedly with the teeth. Her screams filled the air.

"Oh, no!" I gasped. "He got her!"

"Lucy-aneki!" yelled Johnny and Yosaku.

Nami's eyes were wide with horror and her body was shaking.

"A-Arlong-san..." someone moaned. "It hurts..."

Lucy had grabbed the fatso from before and used him as a human... er... _fishman_... shield. She was kneeling behind him, totally fine. The fatso, however, was all cut up and bleeding. Lucy dropped him and stood, wiping a bit of sweat off her brow and breathing in relief.

"M-My brother!" Arlong said, shocked. "Why you... you rubber bitch! How dare you use one of my brothers as a shield!"

Lucy cocked her head to the side. "What are you talking about? You're the one who attacked him."

I sweatdropped. Only Lucy would have logic like that.

"YOU MORON!" I screamed angrily, though I was actually relieved she hadn't been hurt. "DON'T SCARE ME LIKE THAT!"

Arlong crossed his arms and gnashed the teeth. "Stand still, you rubber bitch," he hissed, "because I'm gonna rip you into pieces!"

She rubbed her chin. "Hey, I just thought of a good idea!"

"An idea?" Johnny repeated.

"What could it be?!" Yosaku wondered in a worried tone.

I held my aching side and tried to get some feeling into my hand, which had gone numb with pain. "Knowing Lucy, probably something stupid."

"TWIST GUM!" Arlong smashed and clawed with the set of three teeth and Lucy once again weaved through the barrage of attacks. One came so close that she was forced to jump and spin to dodge it. Then he thrusted with both arms and she ducked, planting her foot firmly on the cement.

She gave a quick kick to Arlong's right cheek with her left foot, a higher version of her _Gum-Gum Whip_. She stomped the ground as he dropped like tenpins, his newest set of teeth popping out of his mouth as well. He bounced and slid back, and she caught the teeth in her hands, grinning. "They came out!"

The bastard sat up, but he had another pair of teeth. "Baka. How many times must I say this? It doesn't matter how often you break my teeth; they'll just grow back and get stronger! DON'T YOU GET IT YET!?"

Wait a minute... what was she doing with that pair of teeth?

"Lucy-aneki..." Yosaku said with an air of realization. "Could your idea have anything to do with...?"

She stuck them in her jaw, stretching her mouth so that she'd be able to fit them. "Look! Now I've got 'em, too!"

We all fell over anime-style.

"I-IT WASN'T A SPECIAL ATTACK!?" Johnny and Yosaku cried.

"How long do you plan to keep on fooling around?!" Arlong growled. He dived forward with his teeth but this time she wasn't quite quick enough. They ripped a cut just below her chest, taking a piece of her clothing with them and exposing a little of her chest. My face flushed red.

"Oi, baka!" I called. "Haven't you ever heard of this thing called a 'bra?'"

Lucy fell back and rolled around, screaming, "AH! I'VE BEEN BITTEN BY A SHARK!"

"I DON'T CARE ABOUT THAT! JUST PUT A FREAKIN' BRA ON NEXT TIME!"

"YOU GOT BIT 'CAUSE YOU WERE FOOLING AROUND!" Johnny and Yosaku admonished.

"Who's fooling around?" Lucy pouted, looking ridiculous with those shark teeth. "I'm being dead serious!"

"TWIST GUM!" Arlong smashed the cement foundations of the complex with his attack but missed his target, who had rolled out of the way just in time. He swiped again and she leaped into the air. Lucy stretched, grabbed a piece of column that was lying around, and used it to block another "bite." She was thrown backwards, glaring at Arlong, who dived after her with his annoying 'JYAHAHAHA' laugh. The bastard slammed down in midair, smashing into Lucy's stomach and slamming her into the cement.

"LUCY!" I yelled.

Johnny and Yosaku moaned in sympathy. "Bitten again!"

Lucy sunk her new set of shark teeth into Arlong's shoulder and he released her, clutching his own wound in pain. I nodded, rubbing my chin. That actually was pretty smart. If she'd have tried to rip his hand away from her stomach, that would've just made the wound worse. Forcing him to let go saved her skin... in more ways than one.

"How's that?" she asked him. "How does it feel to git bitten by your own teeth?" She did a poor imitation of his laugh.

"Even if they are mine..." Arlong spat, ripping the teeth out of his shoulder, "your jaw is far too weak for them! Listen: Sharks tear flesh and limbs from the body of their prey. That's what a shark's true power is!" As my captain twisted away, he managed to catch her whole elbow in his mouth.

"Yowch!" cried Yosaku. "Aneki's bones will be broken!"

Nami stepped backwards in horror. "LUCY!" she yelled.

"AAAAAAAAUUUUUUUGGGGGHHHHH!" shouted the future Queen of the Pirates.

* * *

**COMMERCIAL BREAK AT TENSE MOMENT! :D**

* * *

Arlong bit down, Lucy's arm muscles expanding as she shouted in pain. Everyone watched tensely, hoping that she would be okay. The captain of the Straw Hats wrapped her arm around Arlong's neck and leaned forward, stretching her foot straight up into the air. With a rubbery snap, it exploded downwards and smashed into Arlong's head, knocking him into the ground and making him let go of her elbow at the same time. Lucy rolled away, nursing her elbow as she sat up.

Arlong sat up, too, rubbing his head.

"Is her arm gonna make it?" Johnny fretted.

Lucy ripped the teeth out of her elbow, squealing a little as she did so. I furrowed my brow in sympathy. To be bitten by jaws that deadly... that had to freaking _hurt_.

Suddenly, almost too quickly and smoothly for me to notice, Arlong dived into the sea. In fact, I might not have noticed at all if my neck hadn't started tingling.

"Huh?" my captain asked as she stood up. "Where is he?"

"Luffy!" Nami called. "In the water!"

"Arlong jumped into the sea!" I confirmed.

"The sea?" Lucy blinked and peered into the rectangular pool. A dark shape was just visible under the surface and a fin was cutting through the water. "Whoa!" she exclaimed. "It's a shark!"

We fell over anime style. Again.

"THAT'S _ARLONG_, BAKA!" Usopp corrected her.

The fin disappeared, as did the dark shape.

"Oh?" Lucy commented. "He dove down."

"Not good," I muttered. "Fishmen are twice as strong as they already are underwater. If Arlong plans on fighting her from the sea, she's in huge trouble."

The villagers and the bounty hunters started yelling at her to hide, or to get away from there, but Lucy replied that if she ran away she wouldn't be able to our captain. I grinned and crossed my arms. Lucy may be an idiot at times, but when it came down to it, she sure did know what was best. Then my neck tingled again.

"Lucy, he's coming up!" I told her. "You've gotta dodge it or you'll be ripped apart!"

"Yosha!" she said. My captain leaped to the side, and not a moment too soon; Just as she did so, Arlong came flying out of the water at such a speed that he didn't stop until he crashed into the second floor of Arlong Park. If my neck hadn't tingled, I wouldn't have known it was him. It just looked like a watery blur.

"A torpedo?" I heard Sanji guess. Huh. Hadn't heard him for a while. I guess he was simply too far away.

"Something just shot out of the sea!" Johnny yelped.

"Yeah," I said. "That was Arlong."

"_Arlong_ did that?!"

The fishman captain came out of the rubble of the second floor wall. "Oh? You dodged that well. JYAHAHAHA! But dodging is just dodging; the next one will send you to hell! SHARK ON DARTS!" He flashed down from the ledge with the force of a cannon, and Lucy rolled out of the way, yelping in surprise. Arlong slammed into the cement and stuck there, and for a second I thought that it would make the perfect opportunity for Lucy to attack him; but a chunk of cement around him broke away and he fell into the pool with it.

"SHARK ON DARTS!"

_FWOOSH!_

Lucy only barely dodged again, her long hair falling crazily behind her. She landed lightly on the ground, but he tore at her again, and she jumped into the air, out of the way.

"Lucy, hide!" Usopp said, noticing where Arlong had gone. "He went back into the water!"

Johnny and Yosaku started saying that again, too, and she just looked at them pointedly this time, not even bothering to say anything. They sighed in defeat and snapped their mouths shut.

"I'm gonna break that nose of his!" she proclaimed, glaring at the sea. "Bring it on! Sharky!" She blew steam out her nose.

"You just got lucky before; you barely dodged it!" Usopp tried again. "But if he hits you this time, then you're doomed!"

I had to hand it to him. He sure was persistent.

"GUM-GUM SHIELD!" Lucy yelled, holding her hand straight out, grabbing the ends of her fingers, and stretching them so that they blocked her chest.

"What's that stance?" wondered Yosaku.

Johnny put a finger to his chin in worry. "Does she think that'll stop him?"

My neck tingled again. "Oi! He's coming up even faster this time!"

"FASTER?!" the villagers gasped.

Arlong came tearing up out of the water and smashed into Lucy, who was thrown up into the air with the force. As everyone stared in horror and the bounty hunting duo shouted that she got stabbed, Lucy suddenly giggled and looked up.

"She's alright!" I noticed. Her fingers were wrapped around Arlong's face, one just above his nose. They flew through the air together and Lucy bent forward, then suddenly leaped off and stuck to the wall like she was performing one of Mario's wall jumps.

"I stopped your little trick, so I guess you can't use it anymore!" she said.

"SHARK ON DARTS!"

"WHOA!"

"Spoke too soon," I muttered darkly.

Arlong was hanging on the underside of the roof of the third floor and Lucy was falling through the air. I gritted my teeth. This wasn't good. There was no way for her to dodge now! But apparently Lucy didn't care about that because she simply complained, "You dork! Haven't you used that enough already?"

I raised my eyebrow. "He doesn't appear to have a very wide array of attacks, does he?"

He ignored her and dived yet again. "You're finished!" he claimed.

She folded her hands behind her head and yelled, "Take this! Gum-Gum Fish Net!"

I chuckled. Fish net, eh? How appropriate!

She flung her fingers forward and they all stretched out in different directions, curving around Arlong. They folded together again and came to a stop, as Lucy cheered, "Fishing! Let's fish!" She swung him below her and this soared up a little, then retracted her fingers and slammed her feet together. "YOSHA! And now... Gum-Gum Spear!" Her feet shot down like a spear and slammed him into the cement.

"Sugoi!" I laughed.

"SHE DID IT!" the villagers yelled.

Lucy retracted her feet and spun again, then started to fall again. "Oh? Is he dead?"

Arlong sat up, his eyes suddenly having... changed? I felt a sense of fear flow down my spine. I'd seen enough movies with angry sharks to know that they only did that when they were seriously mad. Arlong looked like he was about to go berserk!

"Arlong... with those eyes..." Nami stammered, her own eyes wide with horror. "I've never seen him like this!"

"Nami..." I said sadly.

"YOU INFERIOR HUMAN!" Arlong erupted, and with a clean swipe of his arm, he grabbed Lucy by the hair and started swinging her over his head like a lasso, making her stretch out in the process. "HOW DID YOU DO THIS TO ME, A FISHMAN?"

_SMASH._ My captain was thrown into another column. We all stared and gasped in horror. Then she sat up, blinking in surprise. "Wow, that really shook me up." She pouted and dusted herself off. "I don't think he's hurt but he sure is angry..."

Arlong dived at Lucy again and she yelled, jumping out of the way and grabbing onto the ceiling above. The bastard punched through the walls and came back out carrying a long, jagged saw blade. Lucy stepped onto the second floor balcony and said, "What's that?"

"The kiribachi!" Nami gasped.

"With huge teeth!" Johnny added, crying anime tears.

He swung back, lifting his leg up in the process, and let out an animal-like yell of anger. Then he jumped to the second floor - - how that was possible, I have no idea - - and gave a deadly slash downward, right at Lucy, who jumped up to the third floor and wasn't hurt. He still managed to rip apart the overhang, though. Arlong followed Lucy up to the next floor with another tremendous blow, but like before she jumped to the next floor up. They continued, and I couldn't help thinking it was a one-sided game of cat and mouse... and the loser would lose their lives.

"Get out of there, Luce!" I called.

"He won't stop!" said a white-coated old man with a pointy chin behind me. Because of the red cross on his hat, I assumed he was the village doctor. "There's no way she can escape him!"

"Lucy'll find a way," I told him. "She always does."

"Oh."

A sudden shout made me swirl around. Lucy had just jumped to the top of Arlong Park, the very top floor, and there was no where for her to run to. She was just outside the far left window and was about to dash around the side of the building when Arlong came up and slashed with the kiribachi. And just like that... they disappeared.

"Hey, where are they?" Usopp fretted. "Is she alive?"

"I think Lucy escaped through the window," I guessed, noticing the now-demolished left window.

Nami's eyes widened and her body started shaking. My eyebrows shot up and I swiveled around to look at her. She had her hands covering her mouth and she was staring up at the window in... recognition?

I remembered the anime and smiled.

Johnny and Yosaku were staring up at the top floor in horror, bug-eyed and gasping repeatedly. I blinked and frowned, wondering if they'd hyperventilate if I left them like that, and then wondering if it really mattered. They didn't actually do much... _Wow, that was really cold_, I realized, wincing.

There was a tense moment of silence that seemed to last forever. Whether it was ten minutes or ten seconds, no one could tell. Everyone was muttering amongst themselves, wondering what the heck was going on in that room. We had no way of knowing what was happening in there. But then something exploded out of the room. At first I tensed, readying myself to catch the object if it was Lucy (not that it would actually help, since she was rubber and, like, six or seven stories up, but hey! I wasn't thinking), but then I noticed that it was a... desk?

"It's a desk!" Usopp announced unnecessarily.

Johnny and Yosaku sighed in relief.

"Oh, it's just a desk," Johnny heaved.

Yosaku rubbed the back of his hand, laughing nervously. "That scared me. For a second, I thought it was Lucy-aneki or something."

"Oi, partner!" his friend reprimanded. "Don't you have faith in Lucy-aneki's strength?!"

"But Johnny, you were worried, too!"

"Nuh-uh!"

"What age are you two?" I cut in sharply, my eye twitching. "Three years old? Four?"

"Eighteen," Johnny grumbled.

"THEN FUCKIN' ACT LIKE IT! Sheesh." Excuse my language, but I was so anxious for Lucy to just win already that I couldn't help but swear.

The desk smashed against the cement foundations of Arlong Park, reducing itself to nothing but a large, chaotic mess of splinters and timber. Something else burst out of the room: A cabinet this time. Then a chair. Then some papers that looked like maps. A picture frame holding a giant map came out, too.

"Lucy..." Nami said, shaking.

"What the heck?" Usopp complained from his perch in the hole. "What's with all this furniture flying out?"

As the maps fluttered to the ground like hundreds of flat birds, the tension in the entrance of Arlong Park grew. There was a pause where nothing else came out, and then suddenly the wall on the left of the building, the side we couldn't see, just totally collapsed, chunks of plaster tumbling to the ground and covering the area in a milky dust.

"This fight is incredibly intense..." muttered Yosaku.

"Yeah," Johnny agreed worriedly, "a true fight to the death."

"Arigatou," murmured Nami, and I turned to see tears building up in her eyes. "Arigatou, Lucy..."

I smiled.

_SMASH! _Something long and thin barreled out of the top of Arlong Park, snapping to a halt. It was like a pole, but I could just make out a sharp curve at the very top. It was... a leg! And the only leg that could possibly be that long was Lucy's, because she was rubber! As we watched, it suddenly descended with lightning speed. There was a sound like a humongous explosion, and then an enormous dust cloud billowed out of the bottom two stories. Everyone gasped in surprise and Usopp gave a kind of strangled yell.

"Look!" shouted the doctor. "That last attack is causing Arlong Park to - -" A rumble like thunder, but unlike it at the same time, shook the ground and cut him off.

Starting with the top layer of the evil cake that was Arlong Park, the building was imploding. Something shattered on the cement with a metallic ring - - a jagged pole with a flag that had the same mark as the one Nami had on her shoulder.

"No way! It's collapsing!" someone reported. "Minna, run!"

The villagers all started sprinting out of the way, but Nami refused to move, saying Lucy was still inside. I took it upon myself to simply pick her up, sling her over my shoulder, and run off. "She'll be fine!" I said. "She always is, you should know that by now!"

"But Lucy - -"

"Just shut up! You'll inhale too much dust and you might choke!"

That shut her up.

And behind us, Arlong Park finally collapsed to the ground, not a single part of it left standing. A forceful wind pushed against us as I turned around, and I raised a hand to shield myself.

"LUCY!" Nami screamed.

"Lucy..." I muttered.

The wind died down just enough for me to here Yosaku gasp, "Arlong Park is... demolished! Aneki... what happened inside there, aneki?"

"Lucy's not gonna here you, ya know," I sighed, but there was no edge to it.

Rays of sunlight broke through the storm clouds overhead. Wait, did I forget to mention the storm clouds? Because for most of the fight, these huge, ominous cotton candies had been hanging over Arlong Park. But now the sun had broken through and the clouds were swept away by the wind, almost as if it had been planned by nature. And someone burst out of the rubble that used to be the home base of the Arlong Pirates, small, slender, and shadowed by the sun at her back.

"Lucy!" gasped Nami, an ecstatic grin spreading across her face.

Johnny and Yosaku were so relieved that they were reduced to tears, hugging each other and moaning, "AAAA-NEEE-KIIII!"

I smirked and said nothing, just folded my hands across my chest and winced. My hand was still on fire, though I hadn't really noticed it because of the tense air, and when your hand is broken, touching it in any way, shape, or form is not something you really want to do.

"I need to get to the sea," I muttered. "See ya."

"NAMI!" roared Lucy as I retreated to the ocean. "YOU ARE MY NAKAMA!"

As I stumbled over to the sea, holding my wounded side and trying not to touch, my shattered hand, I heard Nami sniff, "Hai."

And my smirk widened into a grin as large as Lucy's.

* * *

**Ugh, finally done. Sorry I didn't post anything the last two days. Yesterday, my freakin' account wasn't working and on Christmas Eve I was just so busy I couldn't get anything done. Oh, and I saw _The Secret Life of Walter Mitty_ last night! It was awesome and hilarious! XD I highly recommend it to anyone looking for a good laugh.  
**

Damon: Ha! Take that, stupid fish stick!

Lucy: What's a fish stick? Is it a type of meat?

Damon: ...Actually, yes.

Lucy: MEAT.

Nami: Arigatou, Lucy...

Sanji: YAY! Nami's back! Now I can cook for the beauty that was given to us by the spirit of the ocean herself~!

Damon: Er... actually, the spirit of the ocean is a guy... and he's my father...

Sanji: *jaw drops in horror* E... EHHHHHHHHH?!

**Hope you liked this chapter! If you did, I'd appreciate some follows and/or favorites. As I have said a thousand times before (actually, just about 15), this is not necessary for me to continue. However, I really would like some reviews. Do you know how bored I am right now? *pouts* I want to talk to some ppl... mou...**** So leave a review on what you liked, what you found funny, what you think I can change later on, et cetera! Ah, and don't forget to check out my Straw Hat Snippets companion series! Yup, yup, yup. Well, l8r dudes!  
**

**-TheRealEvanSG**


	17. No 17: Dancing, Dreams, and Goodbyes!

**And another chapter of my fanfiction has arrived! AND IT IS PARTY TIME, PEOPLE! YEAH! Get it on! Uh! Break it down! Come on! Bust a move! ...Yeah, anyway, here are my replies to reviews on the previous chapter:**

**DarkLord98:** Well, sorry to disappoint, but there won't be too much Butterfly Effect in this story, since he's trying to keep that from happening and all. Damon's quest is to keep the One Piece storyline on its original plot, because if it diverges too much, the multiverse will be destroyed. So... no Butterfly Effect. Just warnin' ya.

**SugoiAuthorToBe:** I know what you mean. Some peoples' grammar is just TERRIBLE! It gets on my nerves when I'm reading a fanfiction that actually has a really good idea but BAD GRAMMAR. And to me grammar is as easy as making pie. Easier, actually, since I don't know how to make pie. And yeah, the future demons will be much stronger. Plus, several of the future islands will have qualities that weaken Damon in some way. The fishman thing is explained (briefly) in this chapter. But thank you. I do try to make this fanfiction as realistic as possible. I mean, if you just killed someone, you'd start throwing up too unless you were insane or just used to death. As Damon is neither of those, he throws up.

**Chapter 17 start!**

* * *

Cocoyashi Village Celebrates!

Dancing, Dreams, and the Strangest Goodbye Ever

* * *

**Previously on One Piece Full Blast:**

_I smirked and said nothing, just folded my hands across my chest and winced. My hand was still on fire, though I hadn't really noticed it because of the tense air, and when your hand is broken, touching it in any way, shape, or form is not something you really want to do._

_"I need to get to the sea," I muttered. "See ya."_

_"NAMI!" roared Lucy as I retreated to the ocean. "YOU ARE MY NAKAMA!"_

_As I stumbled over to the sea, holding my wounded side and trying not to touch, my shattered hand, I heard Nami sniff, "Hai."_

_And my smirk widened into a grin as large as Lucy's._

I lay in the ocean, sighing in relief as the pain was washed out of my weary body. Yeah, immersing myself in the sea can do that to me. I'm a demigod son of Aeso, god of the sea. Water heals me. Why I needed healed in the first place is a long story, but if you're reading this chapter, then I probably don't need to give you the details. Unless you're an idiot and you skipped ahead _all the way here_. In which case...

GO THE HELL BACK AND READ THE REST OF THE STORY, MORON!

Excuse me.

As I floated there at the edge of the shoreline, my injuries healing themselves and fading away to nothing but scars, a loud cry of triumph rose up behind me. That would be the villagers cheering so loud they could wake the dead. See, my captain Lucy had just defeated the terrible fishman pirate Arlong and freed Nami from a life of slavery and pain. =

Oh, shit. I just reviewed the last few chapters, didn't I?

...

Well, anyway. I wasn't enjoying the mini party because I had sustained too many wounds from my own battles. I had been able to run on my own, but that was about it. My hand had been broken so badly it the bone felt like it had been completely shattered, but the ocean was healing it just fine. At least, I was finally able to move my thumb again. The rest of my fingers could take some time.

I scanned the shoreline in boredom. Off to the left was my pirate crew's ship, the Going Merry, docked at a bay not too far from Cocoyashi Village - - I'd say about half way between here and there. To the right, Mohmoo, a giant sea bull that Lucy had defeated in the battle for Nami's freedom, floated with swirly eyes, signaling his unconsciousness. And directly in front of me, headed for the pool that led into the demolished Arlong Park, was a large Marine ship.

I blinked. Marines? What were they doing here? A vague memory of a rat-faced captain getting beat to a pulp by an angry Marimo popped into my head, but I frowned and shrugged it off. I was in too much pain to do much of anything right now, and my captain, Monkey D. Lucy, and my other crewmates could handle themselves just fine.

"What the hell are you doing, baka?" a familiar voice said. "You should join them in the celebration. Plus the Marines are coming. We'll need to beat 'em up."

My eye twitched and I turned myself around to see none other than the before-mentioned Marimo scowling down at me. His real name wasn't Marimo, of course. It was Roronoa Zoro, better known in the One Piece world as the bloodthirsty Pirate Hunter. In real life he was an idiot.

"Those morons can handle themselves just fine," I voiced my own thoughts. "And I'm healing myself."

"Healing yourself?"

"Just go with it, dude."

He raised an eyebrow skeptically and shrugged. "Whatever. But you'll miss out on the fun."

My eye twitched some more. He was right. Beating the hell outta annoying Marines _was_ pretty fun. But at the same time, my hand bone was in a simply unacceptable state. I waved dismissively with my good hand. "Nah, you go on ahead. Stab some mofo's for me, will ya?"

"Sure. ...What's a mofo?"

"Don't even ask."

His scowl deepened, but he nodded and walked off.

By now the Marine ship had docked at the demolished Arlong Park, and the celebration had been abruptly cut off. A minute later, however, a person in a white Marine captain's getup hightailed it out of there, screaming in a high-pitched voice, "YOU'LL PAY FOR THIS! I'LL MAKE CERTAIN OF IT!"

I grinned evilly and sent a wave to dunk him under the ocean. Then I lifted him up on a different wave and sent him to the nearest island I could sense - - although I couldn't really sense an island, it was just like a major disruption in the surface of the ocean. Hell, for all I knew, it could be a storm.

My detection range was vastly increasing.

"Hey, Damon!" said Lucy's voice. I blinked and turned around. There she was, peering down at me from the wall of Arlong Park. "Come join us! We're exchanging fight stories!"

I thought for a moment and flexed my hand. To my surprise, I was now able to move all four of my fingers (technically, the thumb is not actually a finger). I grinned and nodded. "Alright! I'll tell you all about mine then!" Something else hit me, something I had forgotten until now. "Oh, and I also wanna tell you what I was doing before we arrived at Arlong Park."

"Yosha! Come on, everyone's waiting!"

I climbed out of the sea, up onto the coastline, and jogged to the rectangular pool with her. Nami, Zoro, Sanji, and Usopp were already there, waiting patiently. Patiently except for Zoro, that is. The green-haired swordsman was scowling into the pool.

"What the hell was taking you so long, Damon?" he complained.

"I told you, I was healing myself," I grumbled.

"MINNA!" Lucy shouted. "STORY TIME!" She grinned like a little kid and sat down Indian style. We all looked at each other, shrugged, and sat down.

Sanji started off with his fight against Gorilla Chest, a fishman with enormous muscles (hence my nickname for him) and protruding, webbed elbows whose name turned out to be Kuroobi. He explained how he'd battled him underwater and was nearly crushed by water pressure until he realized that fishmen's lungs would be useless in the ocean, and that covering their gills would force them to surface.

Zoro told us of his fight with the six-sword style user, the squid fishman Hatchi. He won by cutting his opponent's swords up in a huge twister created by a new attack.

Usopp explained how he almost backed out of his fight with the long-mouthed fishman Chew, but realized that if he did that, then he wouldn't be able to feel like he could sail or laugh with us again. Lucy was reduced to giggles when he told us about all the 'Usopp Hammers' he bestowed upon his opponent.

I hesitated before detailing my own fight against the demigod fishman Fennu. Fennu was another son of Aeso I'd been forced to face off against because he'd been corrupted by greed. They were pretty shocked to here of another demigod of the sea out there.

"Will there be other demigods, too?" Usopp whined, crying anime tears.

"It's a possibility," I confirmed.

"You had to battle with hellhounds?" Sanji inquired, raising his curved eyebrow (I couldn't see his other because the entire left side of his face was hidden by his blonde hair). "But I thought they were just myths!"

"I thought gods and demons were just myths, too," I said. "Yet here I am a son of a god and fighting against demons. Oh, and I was at the oracle goddess's house earlier today. Her name is Lady Venticus and she gave me this sword, Chiwohiku."

"That sword is cursed," Zoro muttered darkly.

I blinked and looked down at the sword, which suddenly seemed to weigh a hundred pounds. "Um... sorry? Did you say it's... cursed?"

"Yeah. I can feel it."

I decided not to argue. If anyone knew swords, it was Roronoa Zoro.

"So that's what Venticus is?" Nami asked. "A goddess? I wondered what she was. She never appeared human the few times she came out of her castle."

"Yup. Besides the sword, she also gave me a prophecy: _From the east/Across the sands/Above the clouds/Before the gates/Into the shadows/Through the land/Under the seas/With one plus eight/The sun shall rise at break of dawn/And the ember ejected from darkness's yawn_."

As before, at Lady Venticus's shop, a strange wind blew across Arlong Park.

"Darkness's yawn..." Nami frowned. "That doesn't sound good."

"What the hell?" Lucy whined. "It's a riddle? I hate riddles! Can't understand them. Plus, they tell what the future is about, and I want the future to be a surprise! If you know the future, then that takes all the adventure out of it!"

I raised my eyebrow. "So... tell me why you want me to be your psychic, again?"

"...You're awesome!"

"Geez, thanks," I deadpanned, but was secretly pleased and smirked at Zoro, who raised his eyebrow. Nami blinked and got a devilish grin on her face, making me sweatdrop and back away a little.

"Got any ideas on what it means?" Sanji asked.

I rubbed my chin. Actually, now that I was thinking about it, I did have a few. The first seven lines sounded like the original One Piece story arcs, except for the sixth, _Through the land_. I wasn't sure what that one was about. Maybe the Red Line? Anyway, the only line that really bothered me was the eighth, _with one plus eight_. Why did it say 'eight?'" The original Straw Hat crew had nine members, if I remembered correctly. Would I somehow cause one of the original crewmembers to not join? Or maybe prevent Usopp from rejoining after the events at Water 7?

"I got nothin,'" I lied.

"Oh well." Lucy giggled. "Come on, minna! There's gonna be a big party! You did here those villagers talking about it, right? There's gonna be a humongous party! Let's go!"

Usopp grinned. "Captain's orders!"

* * *

The party was a blast. That was the only word I know that could describe it. It was loud, colorful, and totally awesome. There were all-you-can eat contests (though the only person who ever won them was Lucy, because of her rubber powers. Also because of those rubber powers, she was banned from future all-you-can-eat contests on Conomi Island. The cooks simply couldn't keep up with her bottomless pit of a stomach.), all-you-can-drink contests, pretty much every contest you could think of. There were the average carnival games, like the ring toss, bobbing for apples, fish cup, and more.

Zoro, that moron, wasn't able to participate until about the end of the second day. He'd gotten too injured due to his fight with both Mihawk and Hatchi, and the village doctor wouldn't allow him to do anything. The doctor had been shocked when he'd seen me perfectly healthy, except for a pins-and-needles feeling that lingered in the hand previously shattered by Arlong.

Lucy peered into the doctor's office, where the doctor was busy restitching Zoro and tending to Johnny and Yosaku, who were happily sleeping off their injuries in the beds adjacent to the Marimo. Sanji, Usopp and I were sitting on a bench just outside of the office and Lucy was hanging in the window.

"Not a bad idea," she mused, "having a doctor. But we also need a musician."

"WHY WOULD WE NEED A MUSICIAN?" Zoro's angry voice roared.

"Pirates like to sing and dance a lot! Don't ya know?"

"AND WHY IS THAT MORE IMPORTANT!?"

"Say, where's Nami?" The doctor's voice drifted through the window, but I couldn't quite hear him, and then Lucy said, "Eh? What place?"

* * *

Three nights later, the party was still going strong. In fact, it might've been going even stronger. The fact that the villagers had stuffed themselves with food and had danced all day long for three days didn't stop them from staying up all night and doing it again. I was beginning to think these guys had enough stamina to outlast Lucy; I couldn't find the girl anywhere. Geez, was it strange thinking of Luffy as a girl...

And also, somehow... right?

As I turned over the town for her, I rounded a corner into a side alley and saw Zoro and Sanji talking to each other... _without _beating each other up! That was a first. During our week-long stay at the Baratie, all they'd done any time they'd seen one another, was bicker.

"Why the hell is this stupid party still going on, anyway?" Zoro was grumbling. "Hasn't it been three days now? Oh, hey, look. It's the kuso-psychic."

"Oi, Damon." Sanji greeted politely. I raised my eyebrow. Someone was in a good mood today... "It's a good thing these guys are partying, Zoro. When you feel happy, you should be able to enjoy yourself. It's the natural order of life."

"Hey, guys, have you seen - -" I began.

Suddenly Lucy's voice shouted in my ear, making me jump about a mile. She was spitting chunks of chewed up meat in my face, making me scowl in disgust and back away. "Oi, Damon!" she grunted through a mouthful of meat. More of the meat rinds were in her hands. "You have to try this meat! It's over there at that table!" I stared in shock. Lucy was offering to share meat? That had to be a first... "Oi, Sanji! You were eating some weird kinda melon earlier. What was it?"

I was so surprised by her sudden appearance that for a moment I wasn't able to react.

Zoro sweatdropped. "What about all that meat in your hands? Isn't that enough?"

"Oh, that," Sanji said thoughtfully. "It's called the Namu-Hamu Melon, because it has Namu-Hamu on top."

"NAMU-HAMU MELON!? That sounds tasty! Where'd ya get it?"

The cook took his cigarette out of his mouth for a second. "Beats me. It's a potluck party for the whole island, so someone must have brought them..."

Just as fast as she'd appeared, our captain ran off. I finally shook myself out of my stupor and tore after her, dodging and weaving through random islanders that accidentally got in my way. When I had finally fought through the crowd and caught up to her, she was inhaling a bowlful of Jell-O. She'd already sucked down the meat rinds and had moved on to something surprisingly American. It had never even crossed my mind that they might have Jell-O here, but that wasn't what I wanted to see Lucy about.

"Hey, Luce," I panted.

"Ne?" she blinked and tilted her head a degree to look at me, a dribble of gelatin hanging out of her mouth. "Oh, hi again, Damon! What's up?"

I shifted nervously. Somewhere off in the distance came Usopp's voice, announcing that he, the invincible Captain Usopp, had defeated the terrifying mermen and that they should sing songs praising him. Then he struck up a horrifyingly terrible and off-key song about him destroying Arlong's crew.

"Um, well, wanna dance with me?" I offered shyly. There was no way she would. I mean, come on, this was Lucy we're talking about here!

She sucked down the last of her Jell-O. "Dance?" Lucy blinked. Then she gave a small smile and... were her cheeks a bit pink? Nah, that couldn't be. "Sure... alright! YOSHA!"

I blushed. Too bad for me that Zoro was watching the whole thing out of the corner of his eye, having come to our table for more booze. I didn't know it at the time, but I would discover it over the next few days because of him making fun of me for it.

As we started up a slow dance that was totally off-beat to the 58th 'Praise of Captain Usopp,' with villagers making annoying "Awwwwwww" sounds at us, and Usopp laughing his head off, I could've sworn that Lucy's cheeks got rosier and rosier. But that couldn't have anything to do with me. On a totally unrelated note, I discovered my captain was as bad at dancing as Usopp was at singing. She kept stepping on my feet and making me wince, but to be fair, I had trodden on hers a lot, too. Not that it hurt her. She, after all, was rubber.

I had a creepy feeling that someone was glaring at the back of my neck the entire dance. I figured it must've been Sanji, and when I turned my head a bit to look over my shoulder, sure enough, he was staring at us with such an angry expression that steam literally was blowing out of his ears. Even though he was surrounded by a small harem of big-chested villagers.

"What's his problem?" Lucy muttered, pouting.

I shook my head and shrugged. "It's Sanji. He's in love with every girl he sees. He'll get over it."

"Oh."

Lucy was strangely non-talkative for those four minutes. Then, the moment the dance ended and we broke apart (though her hands hesitated before releasing me just enough to make it a bit awkward) she ran off, shouting, "NAMU-HAMU MELON!"

I sweatdropped and sighed, a little depressed. Lucy really did have a one-track mind.

* * *

**COMMERCIAL BREAK!**

* * *

At the wee hours of the night, when everybody had finally just fallen over and conked themselves out, with Usopp falling asleep mid-song of his 384th 'Praise,' I was able to get some sleep and I immediately dreamed of Aeso.

"**Again, not too shabby on the fighting,**" he said.

I glared at him, clenching my fist. "Not too shabby? NOT TOO SHABBY? I kill a guy and all you say is _not too shabby_!? What the hell kinda parent _are_ you? I've had nightmares for the past two nights because I killed Fennu? And just how was I able to kill him, anyway?"

"**I'm sorry about your nightmares,**" the bat-winged god apologized sheepishly. "**But that just proves you're the hero meant to save the world. A true hero, one of pure heart and pure soul, truly regrets killing any enemies whose lives he has ended.**"

"What about Lucy, then? Does that make her a false hero?"

He shrugged. "**She says it best herself at Fishman Island. Lucy is a pirate, not a hero. Pirates kill and can kill without thinking too much about it. And Lucy is a pirate in the very truest sense of the word. In other words, although she does somewhat regret killing her enemies, she is able to shrug it off because she views it as saving her friends. Although she may seem like the protagonist of _One Piece_, there is no real protagonist. Oh, and as for how you were able to kill him, well... Fennu put too much faith in a defense of his. He thought it could block anything. Well, it can't block crap if I decided to abandon him, which I did. He was evil. I ain't taking any responsibility over an evil child.**"

I frowned. "Well, you're just the father of the year, aren't ya? Anyway, now that I have a chance to speak with you, I have something to say: My iPod's on red. It's nearly dead. How am I gonna be able to watch future episodes of the anime if the only way I have to watch it dies?"

"**What about your laptop?**" Dad suggested.

"It died the other night."

"**Oh. Well in that case...**" he pulled out a strange-looking device from his pocket, almost like an iPhone but football shaped. He hummed as he swiped his finger across the screen, then typed something in. There was a short pause, then Aeso grinned and nodded triumphantly. "**Alright! I just ordered your brand new, state-of-the-art, everlasting-battery iPod! And laptop. They should appear in your suitcase in anywhere from twenty-four to seventy-two hours.**"

I stared at him. "What is that thing you're holding?"

"**Oh, this?**" He waved the football phone. "**It's just an immortalPhone. The, well, immortal version of the iPhone. I was on godBay just now if you were wondering. They had a really great deal on _All Gods Go To Heaven_... ah well.**"

I sweatdropped. "This is getting to be a really overused pun."

"**Pun? It's no pun. It's real life. Well, keep at it, son. You're doing good. Train, defeat the demons and Senshi and any evil demigods you might meet, and don't forget that regretting is good. By the way, you're a terrible dancer. See ya!**"

And just like that, the dream ended.

* * *

The next day was calm and cool. The party had finally ended and we Straw Hats were finally about to leave the village. We had finally gotten everything onboard, the villagers having given us plenty of provisions to last us until the next island. Johnny and Yosaku had said their goodbyes to us and returned to the seas, going back to bounty hunting. We were waiting for Nami, though Zoro was getting increasingly annoyed.

"Where the hell is that woman?" he grumbled. "She's ten minutes late."

"She probably has a lot of stuff to gather up in her house," I reasoned. "Plus she's gotta say goodbye to all her friends."

"But her friends are all here," Zoro grumbled, pointing over the side of the ship to the docks. It was true. All the villagers of Cocoyashi Village had gathered at the docks to see us off and also to help us pack all our provisions in the ship. It made a guy feel warm inside.

"Why don't we just get going already?" Usopp said. "I thought she wasn't coming."

"EH?! Baka!" Sanji reprimanded, kicking him on the head repeatedly and making him cry anime tears. "WHY NOT?! Zoro said something rude to her again, didn't he? BASTARD MARIMO!" He rounded on the swordsman who just glared at him. "You're trying to get in the way of me and Nami's true love! AREN'T YOU!?"

"It is a possibility though," Usopp mused. "She doesn't have a reason to be a kaizokou anymore. She'd probably be happier if she stayed here."

"WHAT ABOUT MY HAPPINESS?!" Sanji roared at him, looking shark-like. "IF NAMI-SAN DOESN'T GET ON BOARD, I LOSE, LIKE, 48.92% OF MY REASON TO BE HERE!"

"Hey," Lucy spoke up, sounding slightly annoyed. "I never found that Namu-Hamu Melon."

I sweatdropped. "What does that have to do with anything?"

"What's the other 51.08%?" the long-nosed sniper asked, ignoring us.

"LUCY-CHAN IS ANOTHER 48.92% AND THE OTHER 2.16% IS - -" But what that last 2.16 percent was, we never found out, because just then Sanji's eyes changed into hearts and he danced over to the side of the ship, practically squealing. "NAMI-SAN IS HERE!"

"Finally," Zoro heaved.

"Nami-san!" The villagers shouted as they turned and grinned at her. She wore a plain white shirt and far-too revealing short shorts that barely reached her mid-thigh. Her head was also bent and strangely shadowed.

"What's up with her?" I asked no one in particular.

"START THE SHIP!" she yelled, then dashed forward, head still bent. The villagers looked at each other in confusion.

"What _is_ up with her?" Usopp echoed, surprised. "She started running!"

"She said to start the ship~!" Lucy giggled, swinging around and preparing to set sail. We sighed, lowered the sail, pulled up the anchor, and manned the steering rudder.

The villagers gasped. "Hey, they're setting off! WAIT! WE HAVEN'T GIVEN YOU ENOUGH THANKS YET! STOP, NA-CHAN! LET US THANK YOU AND SAY GOODBYE!"

Sanji frowned and looked out at the crowd. "Hey, you sure you wanna let her leave this way?"

Lucy shrugged. "It's her decision."

Nami dashed into the crowd as they surged around her, trying to force her to stop. She weaved through them all, going almost out of her way. The ship drew ever farther out to sea, and I started to worry that we would be too far out for her to get on board, so I forced the sea currents to flow in the opposite direction of our ship, slowing us down. Finally, Nami reached the edge of the dock and took a long leap, flying over the ocean between us and the shore. Her foot landed on the side of the Merry and she tumbled on board, making me sigh in relief.

Her back still turned to the villagers, Nami lifted up her shirt. And out dropped a landslide of wallets and purses. One by one, shouts from the villagers told us that they'd been pick-pocketed. I shook my head and sighed. So that was why she'd been acting so weird. Same old Nami.

"I'm pretty sure this is the strangest goodbye ever," I muttered.

Nami kissed a 1,000 belli bill and turned to the villagers, smiling and waving. "Take care, everyone!"

"YOU LITTLE BRAT!" they shouted.

"Oi, she hasn't changed a bit," Usopp deadpanned.

"Who knows when she'll turn on us next," Zoro quipped.

"Nami-san, good!" Sanji approved.

Lucy erupted into crazed giggles.

"You money-grubbing, selfish, soul-less ginger," I said fondly.

Gradually, the villagers' yells of, "YOU LITTLE THIEF! GIVE ME BACK MY WALLET!" changed into "YOU'RE WELCOME BACK ANYTIME!" and "TAKE CARE!"

"STRAW HAT GIRL!" yelled Gen-san, the village leader who wore a red coat and a red cap. "DON'T YOU DARE FORGET OUR PROMISE!" In reply, Lucy simply grinned and gave him a thumbs-up.

"Goodbye everyone!" Nami called. "I'm off!"

And so we sailed off onto the horizon, smiling and shaking our heads at our navigator. She was a real piece of work, that girl, but she was our nakama. And our nakama she would always be, from the East Blue all the way to end of the Grand Line.

Together, we were the Straw Hats, and we were proud to call ourselves such. Because together, we could change the world.

* * *

**Oh ho ho ho! A little Lucy/Damon fluff goin' on there! And Damon's a terrible dancer but he blamed it all on Lucy. XD Typical delinquent One Piece kid. Anyway, hope you liked the end of the Arlong Arc! Whoa, I'm almost at the end of season one, which would also mark the end of this first installment of OP Full Blast! Holy shiz nuggets!  
**

Damon: I... can't believe I actually... danced... with Lucy...

Lucy: *blushes lightly* It wasn't too bad... just needed more meat.

Damon: ...

Sanji: BASTARD!

Lucy: I still want that Namu-Hamu Melon...

**If you liked this chapter, don't forget to follow and or favorite my story! Also, you might want to either follow my author page or subscribe to my community for this story, because pretty soon I'll be done with this installment and I'll be posting the first chapter to the second. You won't wanna miss it. Also review on what you liked, what you found funny, or what you want me to change in the future!  
**

**-TheRealEvanSG**


	18. No 18: Making off for Loguetown!

**Well, the Arlong Arc is finally here! And it looks like our heroes are up for some trouble (and in Zoro's case, embarrassing moments) because they're making way to Loguetown, plus Lucy is about to get her first bounty! :D Replies to reviews on the previous chapter:**

**DarkLord98:** Their relationship is gonna progress slowly, to be more realistic. 'Cause honestly, it takes a lot for a true relationship to progress. Anyway, all will be explained. ;)

**Otaku-san32: **Yup, I'm definitely planning this to be a Lucy/Damon pairing. Arigatou, and here ya go!

**Chapter 18 start!**

* * *

Straw Hat Lucy Becomes World Famous!

Making off for Loguetown

* * *

**Previously on One Piece Full Blast:**

_"Goodbye everyone!" Nami called. "I'm off!"_

_And so we sailed off onto the horizon, smiling and shaking our heads at our navigator. She was a real piece of work, that girl, but she was our nakama. And our nakama she would always be, from the East Blue all the way to end of the Grand Line._

_Together, we were the Straw Hats, and we were proud to call ourselves such. Because together, we could change the world._

We'd just left Conomi Island a few hours ago, after beating up the merman pirate captain, Arlong, and partying for three straight days. That day would've been peaceful if it hadn't been for the screaming.

"Ow! It burns! It burns!" Usopp shrieked as he ran around the Going Merry, tears pouring out of his eyes and hands covering his face.

Lucy was trying to take a tangerine from the grove of fruit trees Nami had brought aboard the ship. Sanji, however, was on the case, and he wouldn't let our captain have any even though she was a girl, which was a bit surprising.

"This is Nami-san's tangerine orchard!" he informed her. "I won't allow you to take even a single one." His eyes lit up into creepy hearts. "NAMI-SWAN! THE SECURITY GUARD OF LOVE IS ON DUTY!"

Nami, who was reading the paper, snorted and said sweetly, "Arigatou, Sanji-kun."

Zoro, who was on the back side of the ship whereas they were at the figurehead, scoffed. "She's using him like a tool, that dork Sanji."

Up in the lookout post, otherwise known as the crow's nest, I shrugged. "It's not too bad of a business," I said. "If I was a girl, I'd probably play him, too, just so I could get free stuff. What the hell is up with Usopp, anyway?"

"Oh, that baka? He accidentally spilled some of his own Tabasco star in his eyes."

I looked at the upper deck, where Usopp was trying to find some water. "Ah. That would explain why a giant flume of fire is coming out of his face." I summoned some water from the sea and splashed it over the liar. He was thrown off-balance, but when he had finally stopped stumbling around, his face looked a lot better... though still slightly charred.

"A-Arigatou, Damon," he panted, lying on the deck of the Merry.

"Don't mention it."

"The world's in such chaos right now..." I heard Nami mutter as she flipped a page of the paper. "There was another coup-de-tat in Villa."

"What's a coup-de-tat?" I asked.

"A sudden overthrowing of a government."

"Oh."

That was when a piece of tan-colored paper slipped out of the newspaper and fluttered down to the deck of the Going Merry. There was some kind of image on the side that was facing us, but I couldn't make out what it was due to my current distance. I lowered myself out of the crow's nest and scrambled down the main mast (it used to be kinda scary to do, but over the week and a half I've been in this world, I've gotten over it) so I could get a better look.

There was a pregnant pause as everybody except Zoro, who was sleeping, examined the picture on the paper. Then we all yelled in surprise. "EHHHH?!"

Lucy giggled. "Check it out, we're _WANTED!_" Sure enough, the poster was an image of her grinning widely in front of the wreckage at Arlong Park, waving to the camera. The caption underneath read, _Wanted Dead or Alive: Monkey D. 'Straw Hat' Lucy_. _30,000,000 belli_.

"Hey, look there!" Usopp pointed to a spot just below and to the right of Lucy's ear in the pic. "Even my back is famous now! Damn, I've got it goin' on!"

I pouted. "Eh? Why don't I get a poster?"

"The Marines that came to the island to take all of the money from Arlong Park never saw you," Sanji pointed out. Then he moaned, "BUT HOW COME THEY HAVE LONG NOSE'S PICTURE AND NOT MINE?! Oi, where, where? I don't see ya, Usopp!"

The sniper pointed again. "Seeee?"

Sanji sat down and folded his arms, pouting and tic-pulsing. Usopp sneered at him. "It's just the back of your head," our cook muttered. "It doesn't count."

"Hey, now, don't be jealous! Someday you could get one, too, and be famous like me - - even if you aren't the captain!"

This brought Sanji out of his funk. "EH?! Hontou?"

"Well, if you work hard..."

As Lucy's giggles continued and so did my depressed state (_why_ did I have to be injured so badly that I missed out on seeing the Marines, and thus getting a bounty poster? WHY!?), Usopp and Sanji struck up an incredibly retarded dance routine.

"ALRIGHT, CREW!" Lucy roared. "WE'RE GOING TO THE GRAND LINE!"

"YOSHA!"

"You guys..." Nami cut in, sighing and shaking her head, "once again, you don't understand the seriousness of the situation!" She had exchanged the white shirt she'd been wearing a few hours ago for a teal one. She facepalmed. "Don't you see this means the Marines will be coming for our heads?"

The three morons ignored her and just continued dancing and laughing and cheering.

"I want a bounty poster..." I sniffed.

"I don't think we'll be able to lounge about in the East Blue anymore," the navigator mused.

"Let's go, let's go, let's go to the Grand Line~!" Sanji, Lucy, and Usopp sang. "Let's go! Go! Go! Go! To the Grand Line!"

"CAN YOU BAKAS PLEASE SHUT UP AND LET ME MOURN MY FAME IN PEACE!?" I bellowed, tic-pulsing and clenching my fist as I cried anime tears.

A few hours later, we were still in our mixed emotions and we didn't even notice the banged-up Marine ship sailing a little ways in front of us. Well, we didn't notice it until it turned around and pulled up beside the Going Merry, our ship. When we saw it, Lucy and Usopp stopped cheering and I perked up a little. Sanji was cooking lunch in the kitchen.

"Are those kaizokou?" Lucy wondered, peering at the ship. "Using a scrapped military boat?"

Usopp sighed and shook his head. "How wasteful the Marines are. Just throwing ships away as scrap."

"That thing looks like it's been through a war," I muttered. It had been smashed up pretty badly and someone had done a hasty repair job. The Marine ship looked as though it wouldn't last through the next storm, much less to the next island.

Someone in a faded yellow suit stomped angrily on the side of the other ship, glaring at us. His face was vaguely familiar but I couldn't place it until I noticed the color of his hair. "WE ARE NOT SCRAP!" he bellowed. "ARE YOU IDIOTS BLIND?! HOW COULD YOU FORGET THE LEGENDARY MARINE CAPTAIN, IRON-FIST FULLBODY!"

I gagged, my eye twitching. "Ah! Pink hair! It's that moron Marine captain from the Baratie!"

Lucy grinned and pounded her palm in recognition. "Oh, that Marine ossan! Are you in trouble? Do you need us to save you or something?"

"I AM NOT A MORON! STOP KIDDING AROUND! Destiny has placed you in my hands," he proclaimed, his face twitching as badly as my eye. He held up Lucy's new bounty poster. "Monkey D. Lucy! You are under arrest!"

Lucy grinned and giggled. "Cool! My picture looks good!"

"And the back of my head looks good, too!" Usopp added quickly.

I sunk to the deck of the Merry, a depressed aura around me again. "I didn't get a bounty..."

"You're wanted _dead_ or alive," Fullbody remarked, smirking. "LOAD THE CANNON!"

Usopp turned blue and Lucy tilted her head. "What're they doing? Attacking us?"

The liar cowered and his behind the main mast. "They're gonna shoot right at us! This is not goood."

I wiped my tears and looked up, still sniffling. "E-Eh?"

"Yosha!" Lucy cheered, stretching her hands out to grab on to different parts of the Merry. "Let me at 'em! I'll just bounce the ball right back!"

"And last time you said that, you were stuck working as a waiter in a restaurant for a year," I muttered.

"Lucy, I'll handle it," Zoro offered, motioning to his sword, Wado Ichimonji. His other two had been shattered during his fight with the strongest swordsman in the world, Hawk-Eyes Mihawk.

"Yeah," Usopp agreed. "Just step back and let Zoro have this one." He pulled Lucy away. "Don't get involved. This way, this way..."

"Sink 'em," Fullbody ordered.

_BOOM!_ The cannon fired and a cannonball flew right at Zoro, who was now the only one on the upper deck, but the swordsman simply unsheathed his sword and sliced downward. The iron ball was cut cleanly in two, and the separated parts flew over the Merry and out to sea, where they exploded with enough force to disturb the water and make my neck tingle.

"Whoa, sugoi!" Lucy approved.

The Marines gasped and backed away in fright, and I sweatdropped at the amount of them. Did they really think they could take us on with twelve men?

"No way!" Fullbody said. "That's just crazy!"

Zoro sheathed his sword again and walked back to the lower deck. "You shouldn't wake people who are napping."

"HOW MANY SHOTS CAN YOU STAND!? FIRE AGAIN!"

The cannon started shaking as the fuse was lit, and even someone like me who knew absolutely nothing about weaponry could tell that wasn't a good sign. On closer examination, one could see that the last attack had caused cracks to open up in the cannon.

"That ain't good," Lucy noted, rubbing her head.

"Not good?" Usopp snorted.

I frowned. "Hey, Marine dude manning the cannon! Ya might wanna step back."

_KA-BOOM!_ The cannon exploded and nothing else happened. No cannonball was shot at us; all we could see was a huge cloud of stinky, black smoke. When it cleared, there were twelve very surprised and charred Marines, one comically shocked 'captain,' and another hole int the other ship.

"Told ya you might wanna step back," I muttered.

"Yeah, see?" Lucy spoke up, a blank look on her face. "The cannon had a crack in it."

Usopp sighed and shook his head. "That's never a good sign. Never fire a cannon with cracks."

The Marin ship changed course and collided lightly with the Going Merry, making us shake a little. Fullbody leapt onto the railing again and roared, "Listen, you brats! Do not look down upon an Ex-Captain of the Marines! We'll defeat you in close combat!" He jumped onto our ship while the rest of his strange-looking men shivered.

"Y-Yes captain!"

"Well, you gotta give it to him," I conceded. "If there was a prize for stupidity, he'd win it."

"I'll have your head, Monkey D. Lucy!" Fullbody spat, punching our captain with his iron knuckles. Lucy's head was flung back, stretching far off of the Merry. As she snapped back, her hat was blown off with the force of the wind, and she grabbed it with a stretch of her arm.

"Gum-Gum Bell!"

_BONG. _The two's heads connected with a resounding ring of a giant bell and Ex-Captain Fullbody was thrown back into the railing of the Merry. Meanwhile, one small wave from me and a few kicks from Sanji, who had just come out of the kitchen and was wearing a pink apron with a panda on it, took care of the underlings. They were tossed unceremoniously back onto their scrappy ship.

Fullbody watched them go in confusion. Then he took one look at the new addition to the small fight and freaked out.

"How dare you interrupt a cook in the middle of his work!" Sanji growled darkly, brandishing a frying pan. "You freakin' jerk." He narrowed his eyes. "We're not serving soup today. You wanna lick the deck?"

The Ex-Captain backed away, stuttering in fear. "W-W-Why is that w-w-waiter here?!" Behind him, his men were jumping ship, and he glanced from them to Sanji. He paused, then leaped back onto his own ship and dived off the other side, screaming like a chimpanzee.

Lucy pouted and adjusted her straw hat. "Eh? It's over already?"

"Ha! He's all talk." Usopp snorted, holding his nose up in the air importantly.

"You didn't even do anything," I deadpanned.

"That guy's still a jackass," Sanji grumbled.

"You guys are so noisy!" Nami complained from her lawn chair, still reading the newspaper. "Can't I get some peace and quiet to read?"

"NAMI-SWAN! LUCY-CHWAN! THE FOOD IS READY!"

"Baka," I sighed, but I grinned and headed for the kitchen.

"Hontou?!" Lucy cheered. "I'm starving! Food! Food! Foo-ood, food!"

* * *

After lunch, which was as delicious as every other meal Sanji cooked, we discussed our game plan for entering the Grand Line. Everyone had gathered on the upper deck and we were staring at a map Nami had brought out - - to be specific, the map she'd stolen from Buggy before I'd fallen into this world.

I shuddered. Buggy the Clown... I was glad I hadn't been here to see him. I simply _hated_ clowns. Clowns are creepy!

"We're getting very close to the Grand Line," Nami announced as we examined the map. "The only way to get there is by going through Reverse Mountain." She tapped an area in the middle of her map right at the crossing of the Red Line and the Grand Line. The small area of land was divided by five different blue lines, connecting at the center of the mountain and coming from the North Blue, the East Blue, the South Blue, the West Blue, and the Grand Line.

"That's a pain in the ass," Zoro complained. "Can't we just go straight there from the sea?"

"According to my old man's stories," Sanji said, "it's the only way in."

Usopp hummed. "Eh? Why's that?"

"It's extremely dangerous."

"That's what I asked! Why?"

The cook tic-pulsed. "I don't know any more than that!"

"Your old man was right," I put in. "See, the Grand Line is surrounded on either side by two stretches of sea called the Calm Belts. They're called that because in those two seas, no wind ever blows and there are never any sea currents, making it impossible to sail. If someone _did_ try to sail through the Calm Belts, their ship would just get stuck and they'd never be able to go anywhere. They'd just stay there until they ran out of food and died."

"Scary!" Usopp shivered.

"That's not the only reason," Nami added. "The other is - -"

Lucy giggled. "Yosha! I got it! Let's go head-on through the front!"

I facepalmed and Nami's eye twitched like mine. She hissed, "Are you even listening to us!?"

"But won't it be more interesting?" Lucy grinned and rubbed her hands together excitedly. "It'll definitely be more exciting that way!"

Nami sighed and shook her head. "Trying to explain something to you is impossible. It's driving me insane!"

"Agreed," I moaned.

"But the most important thing," Lucy continued, "is that we stop at another island to stock up on more meat! Meat, meat!"

"We just set sail this morning!" I pointed out. "We've got plenty of meat!"

Nami shushed me and quickly pointed to an island a little ways away from Reverse Island. "On this island," she announced, "there is a famous city. It's called Loguetown."

Lucy blinked. "Loguetown? Are they famous for their meat?"

I sweatdropped. "Your mind is permanently fixed on meat, isn't it." It wasn't a question really, it was a statement.

Zoro decided to speak up. "It's also called 'The Town of the Beginning and the End.' Or so I've heard."

"It's the place where the kaizokou king, Gol D. Roger, better known as Gold Roger, was born. And it's also the place where he was executed." Nami explained.

"The city where the kaizokou kind died..." Lucy muttered.

"Wanna go?'

Our captain nodded, her expression serious for once. "Yeah, I wanna go. I want to see it. The man who owned the One Piece... the man who had everything the world has to offer... the place where he was born and where he died."

We looked at each other and nodded. Our next destination was set. We were going to Loguetown.

* * *

**Yes, another chapter of my fanfiction is complete! Season One of One Piece and Installment 1 of my story is nearly done! Please follow or favorite if you liked my story and haven't done so already! It'll keep ya updated whenever I release a new chapter. **

Damon: Shit-author! What were you thinking, letting that pink-haired, fugly Marine have more screen time!?

I couldn't help it. It was part of the original plot.

Lucy: I want more meat! And also to see the place where the kaizokou king died! And more meat!

Straw Hats: *all sweatdrop*

**Don't forget to leave a review on what you liked, what you didn't, what you think I should change in the future, suggestions for more Lucy/Damon fluff, et cetera et cetera. You know all that jazz by now. Also check out my companion to this fanfiction, Straw Hat Snippets, which details the crazy everyday lives of everyone's favorite pirate crew! For those of you who are already fans of the series, you can help me by spreading the word to other people who like this genre of fanfiction. Even though I consider popularity to be unnecessary for me to continue writing, I'd appreciate every fan I can get. It makes a guy feel all warm and fuzzy inside.**

**-TheRealEvanSG**


	19. No 19: Arriving at Loguetown!

**The Straw Hats' adventure is about to start for real! They're finally in Loguetown! Woo-hoo! I can't believe I've actually kept writing the story to this point. XD Most of the time I stop writing my stories by the second or third page. lol Anyway, my replies to reviews on the previous chapter:**

**SugoiAuthorToBe:** It will be epic, trust me, though it won't be for a few chapters. lol And thank you once again. I'm not really sure. I read a lot of different books from a wide array of authors, though I mainly stick with adventure/mystery/fantasy. Reading so much has really helped me understand description and grammar and those kinds of things, and if you wanna be a great author, I recommend that you not only read newer books like Harry Potter or Percy Jackson, but also older ones like _The Hobbit__ (or There and Back Again), __The Lord of the Rings _Trilogy, and even _The Chronicles of Narnia_. All of those are great adventure stories and have amazing writers. And did you know that both universes in the worlds of those books directly relate to Christianity? In _The Chronicles of Narnia_, Aslan the Lion is God and Tash is a direct relation to Satan. In _The Lord of the Rings_, it's the wizard Gandalf who represents God and the evil sorcerer Sauron and his One Ring who stand in for Satan. And unfortunately I can't really do that because he'll be pretty much helpless next chapter. lol

**DarkLord98:** Stay tuned and all shall be revealed. XD Not in this chapter, though. In the next.

**Guest: **Sorry but can't do the Ace thing. Damon's whole quest is to stop the anime from diverging from its original plot too much. But thank you so much! Yup, Damon'll need luck when Lucy's involved. XD And that would be totally hilarious! I dunno where I'd be able to do it, though...

**Chapter 19 start!**

* * *

The Strongest Martial Artist in the East Blue!  


Arrival at Loguetown!

* * *

**Previously on ****One Piece Full Blast:**

_"It's the place where the kaizokou king, Gol D. Roger, better known as Gold Roger, was born. And it's also the place where he was executed." Nami explained._

_"The city where the kaizokou kind died..." Lucy muttered._

_"Wanna go?"_

_Our captain nodded, her expression serious for once. "Yeah, I wanna go. I want to see it. The man who owned the One Piece... the man who had everything the world has to offer... the place where he was born and where he died."_

_We looked at each other and nodded. Our next destination was set. We were going to Loguetown._

The Town of the Beginning and the End was a mess of houses and shops, all packed together like packing corn, or whatever it was called. There were blue houses, yellow houses, white houses, shops with the names painted on signs in bright colors, and everywhere you looked, there was people. People milling about on the streets, lounging around on benches without a care in the world, carrying shopping bags and dashing about wildly. The streets, unlike the dirt roads of Cocoyashi Village, were cobblestone. At the entrance, an arch with a plaque on it announced the city's name: Loguetown.

"This place reminds me of home," I said, thinking of New York City. I grew sad at the thought and wondered how Cracked-Up Kane was holding up. The last time I'd seen him, he had been so sick... If my disappearance from that world had worried him so much that he'd kicked the bucket, I was gonna kill Aeso.

Then I remembered someone else, another friend of both him and me: Jason Starling, another street kid. He was twenty-five and had been Cracked-Up Kane's old student.

"You lived in a city?" Nami asked, surprised.

"Yeah," I replied wistfully. "It was huge, like this town. I used to go to a school called _Burgess Boy's Academy_. Then one day, I came home to my mom's apartment to find her lying on her bed, dead. She'd been murdered brutally. I ran away from home to live on the streets so that I wouldn't have to go to an orphanage."

She furrowed her brow. "Oh." She didn't say sorry. I was glad for it. When a loved one dies, people think that the family of the person wants sympathy. Most of the time, though, it only makes the family feel worse. Saying nothing is often more helpful than apologizing.

I smiled weakly at her. In a way, I felt like I could understand and relate to Nami better than the rest of the crew could. We'd both lost our moms to cruel killers. Maybe it wasn't much, but it still felt better knowing that one of my nakama had been through the same thing as me.

"You never really talk about your own past," Sanji commented. "Why is that?"

I shrugged. "I don't really like talking about myself. I'd rather listen to what other people have to say or just not talk at all."

"Oh. That's cool."

Lucy had completely ignored us and was giggling, "This is gonna be so much fun!"

Nami wisely decided to change the subject. "Well, guys, we're finally here! Loguetown. The final stop for any pirate from the East Blue who wishes to enter the Grand Line. They come here to resupply because it has everything you could possibly need."

It had taken us about another week and a half to get here. In that week, we had run out of food, met an ex-Shichibukai that hadn't been mentioned in the original One Piece story line due to his unimportance to the plot, found buried treasure, and more. And as Aeso had promised, I'd gotten an iPod and a laptop that never ran out of batteries and were a whole lot faster than my previous ones. But that's a story for another today.

"If that's the case, then I'm gonna go on a shopping spree," Usopp decided. "I bet they have all sorts of stuff here."

"Well, we _do_ need to stock up," Sanji conceded. "I could get some fresh produce." A heart floated out from his head, and he grinned like a perv, which he was. "And fresh ladies!"

"This is so cool," I murmured, now that I had gotten over my homesickness. "We're in the place where the king of the kaizokou was born and raised! You can practically feel the history that was made in this place." It was true. There was a strange feeling in the air, and it made me excited. I was fairly certain that an onlooker would've seen sparkles in my eyes.

Nami sweatdropped. "I swear you're bipolar."

"Maybe I'm tripolar. Have you ever thought of that?"

"THAT'S NOT EVEN A WORD!"

"It's not? Well, it should be. Maybe if I keep using it, it'll catch on."

"NO WAY WILL IT CATCH ON!"

Zoro ignored us. "I need to get some new swords. They might have a sword smith around here."

Nami's face immediately lit up and she sidled over to the unofficial first mate, who looked down at her and raised an eyebrow. "But I thought you were broke," she said, smiling sweetly but getting an evil glint in her eye that made me sweatdrop. "Are you gonna steal a sword?"

The Marimo thought that over, rubbing his chin.

"Well," said Lucy, "I'm gonna find out where they kill people!" We all looked at her in confusion. She dashed off, her long black hair flowing in the wind. "Gotta see where the kaizokou king was executed!"

Sparkles lit up in my eyes again. "Wait up, Luce! I wanna see too!" I called, tearing after her.

We weaved through the thick crowds, looking for the execution platform. We couldn't find it very easily, though. As we ran, Lucy turned to me and giggled. "Isn't this great, Damon? The kaizokou king was born and killed here! We could be running in his very footsteps right now!"

I nodded eagerly. "Yeah! I know! It's totally awesome!"

The straw hatted girl was so pumped up that she literally jumped about five feet into the air, earning us curious glances from passersby. I didn't really like the way some of the guys in this town were looking at her. I felt a little... protective of her? Jealous, even?

_What am I thinking?_ I reprimanded myself. _Lucy can take care of herself just fine. And she's asexual. It's not like she'd fall in love with anybody, especially not some random stranger staring at her._

The thought didn't really make me feel better, though.

As we ran, I heard a voice shout out from a very Japanese building, "Oi! The 53rd Annual East Blue Karate Tournament is today! May the strongest martial artist win! Only martial arts, please, no devil fruit powers!"

I skidded to a stop. Lucy slowed down to a walk and looked at me quizzically.

"There's a karate tournament," I explained. "I promised my mentor, Cracked-Up Kane, that I'd become the strongest martial artist in the world." I frowned and paused, looking from the tournament building to Lucy. Which one did I want to do the most? Was the tournament more important, or was seeing the execution spot of the man who had everything the world has to offer?

Lucy grinned and nodded. "Oh, is that so? Well then, what are you waiting for? Go already!"

I hesitated, then smiled and nodded. "I'll meet up with you at the platform after the tournament, okay?"

"Sounds good!" she replied, and took off. Soon she was swallowed by the crowd and I couldn't see her again.

As for myself, well, I headed for the building.

I had a tournament to win.

* * *

The Loguetown Martial Arts Club was a large, green building whose name had been painted on a yellow sign in red kanji. I wasn't sure how I was suddenly able to read kanji, but I was grateful for it. In a world where they wrote mainly in Japanese, translation would be a necessary skill for me. The club building was at least four stories high, had red overhangs on each floor that reminded me of Arlong Park (that didn't make me feel too good) and had a large double door. Outside these doors, on the white marble steps leading up to the entrance, stood an elegantly dressed man who was shouting about the tournament.

"Hey, there!" I greeted, waving my hand. "My name's Digger D. Damon. I'm here for the tournament." I climbed up the steps and shook his hand.

"Greetings, contender!" he said. His voice was smooth, like Sanji's, and he seemed like he should be behind a desk in an office, not greeting people who were entering a martial arts tournament. "If you wish to enter, just sign up here!" The man held out a clipboard with a simple sign-up sheet like you might find at a doctor's office. "Please note that only martial arts is allowed. No Devil Fruit users. Weapons are allowed, however."

I frowned. Would my demigod powers break those rules? Probably. I could still use Chiwohiku, though. I had been training in swordsmanship under Zoro this past week and now knew the basics of swordplay. I still wasn't very good at it, but I'd be able to hold my own in a fight.

I penned in my name, the date, and the time. I adjusted my leather jacket and stepped through the doors.

"You'll be in the C Block, sir," the greeter told me. "That would be on the third floor."

Inside, the building looked like any other martial arts dojo: a square white mat in the center of a wood floor, with opaque windows letting in enough light to see, but not to blind anyone and get in the way of fighting. In the back was a staircase. A sign told me that this was the A Block of the tournament. A crowd of sweaty, gross-smelling people were stuffed in between the walls and the mat, where two men older and heavier than myself were trading punches. I pushed my way through the bystanders and climbed the staircase in the back up to the second floor, which was almost exactly like the first except with less people. Here, the contenders were fighting sword against mace. On the third floor, the mat was empty and a tall, thin man with scraggly, strawberry blond hair was tapping his foot on the mat. There were only a few bystanders here.

I cracked my knuckles and stepped onto the mat.

"You'll be my opponent, then?" the tall man guessed. "The name's Hayden Zangetsu."

"Nice to meet you," I said politely. "Digger D. Damon."

An old man that reminded me of Cracked-Up Kane stepped just outside the mat and said, "Contenders, bow to your sensei."

We bowed to him.

"Back three feet away from the mat," the old guy said. Even his voice and accent was like Kane's. "Get in your fighting stances. Do not hit below the waist line. The man who wins two out of three rounds shall win the match. To win a round, simply land a hit without it getting blocked. Round one, begin."

We leaped action.

Hayden immediately through a lightning-quick punch at my head. I ducked and twisted, flinging out a back kick, the most painful kick in karate. I drove it forward and it would've smashed into his stomach, knocking the wind out of him, but he swept his arm down low and to the side, effectively stopping my leg in its tracks. He threw five more punches in rapid succession, followed by a finger jab. I weaved through all of them and delivered an uppercut to the man's jaw. Luckily, it connected.

"Round one goes to red," the sensei said, motioning to me. I supposed that made me Red. "Get back in your fighting stances. Round two, begin."

The second round lasted a full four minutes before Hayden grabbed my shoulders, placed a foot on my stomach, rolled backward, and let go, flinging me off the mat, where I tumbled, panting, across the cold wood floor.

"Round two to black," announced the old man. "Get in your fighting stances. ...Good. Next hit wins. Round three begin."

Panting, we flew into the third round. The ginger and I dodged and lashed out, attempting and failing to score hits. Once, he almost hit me with a knifehand attack, but I arched my back and bended backward, and it passed so close to my head I could feel it blow my bangs back.

Finally, I managed to drive my fist into Hayden's chest. His eyes widened and he was thrown into the back wall.

"Match to red," the sensei said calmly. "Good fight. The next match will be in five minutes."

"That was... not bad..." panted the tall kid. "Good... fight, Damon..."

I grinned sheepishly and shook his hand again, panting hard in between words. "Not bad... yourself... that was really... tough to win." We bowed to each other, then once more to the sensei and headed for a water fountain, which had been built into the wall. I drew some water out of it and washed it over myself, giving me more energy. Hayden's eyes widened.

"You're a Devil Fruit user?" he gasped.

I shrugged and wiped sweat off my forehead. "Not exactly. It's... an inherited trait."

He didn't seem to buy it, but frowned and said, "Oh."

The next few battles were similar. I'm not gonna go into a lot of detail because it would be too repetitive. I fought one guy with a scimitar and managed to win because I had the shorter blade and stepped in. A match with weapons could be won by disarming your opponent. I also fought this enormous body builder who was really tough and practically broke my arm when he blocked it, but the other times I was too quick. His size worked against him in speed. After every match, I revitalized myself with water from the drinking fountain.

Ten battles later, I found myself one place from the top. I was the champion of the C block and had defeated everyone from the D block, too. If I could beat the next guy, I could win the tournament and be the strongest martial artist in East Blue! By now I had attracted quite a crowd. They wanted to see who this nobody was that could beat up all the big names in Loguetown.

My opponent, the champion of the A and B blocks, was average weight. He had an eye patch covering his right eye and a ring on his left finger. His eyes were purple and his hair was spiky and white. By my estimates, he was in his late thirties or early forties. I frowned thoughtfully. That eye patch was seriously cool.

"That's the champion of last year's tournament," someone in the crowd whispered. "They call him the Snow Leopard. His name's Toshiro Yamamoto. He ate the Cold-Cold Devil Fruit and has the ability to freeze things."

"The kid in the leather jacket's Digger D. Damon," someone else said, making me smirk. "No one knows where the hell he came from, but he's climbed up to the top of the ladder. Some people claim they saw him control water. He must have some sort of water-based Devil Fruit."

"Alright, men!" The sensei clapped his hands together, pulling my attention from the crowd. "This last match shall be different. Devil Fruit powers are allowed now. Bow to your sensei. Get in your fighting stances. Good. Round one, begin!"

I frowned. Devil Fruit powers were allowed? If what the crowd has said was true, then that meant that my new opponent would be able to freeze me, and that would allow him to the chance to punch me.

"Cold-Cold Avalanche!" called Toshiro, clapping his own hands together and bending his head down. A chill ran through the air and my eyes widened. I leaped to the side with a yell and rolled away. A freezing blast of cold wind rushed past the spot I'd been standing on moments before.

I managed to stop rolling just before I fell off the mat. I'd learned that if you exited the mat during a fight, that round would go to the other fighter. I scrambled to my feet and dodged another blast of arctic air, then retaliated by sticking my hand out and sending my thoughts to the water in the fountain. It sprayed out of the faucet, startling Toshiro and breaking his concentration. As he reestablished himself, I wrapped my fist in water and pounded his face in.

"Round one to red. Get back in your fighting stances. Round two begin!"

The second round was a bit tougher. Toshiro was now on the move, sending blasts of arctic air at me while at the same time, following up with punches and kicks. I was only barely managing not to get hit. The temperature of the room had dropped dramatically due to my opponent's Devil Fruit, and it felt as though some heavy weight was pushing down on me. My breath came out in ragged gasps, and my reactions were slowing.

_Not good_, I thought. _At this point I'll lose the round__, maybe even the match_.

Just as I that crossed my mind, I felt a sharp jolt of pain in my side as Toshiro drove his foot into my ribcage. I winced and my body swayed with the blow a little

The sensei frowned. "Round two to black. Next hit wins the match. Get back in your fighting stances. Round three begin!"

The white-haired man's next few attacks were so fluid and quick it was as though he was dancing. He shot out with a punch, which I blocked with my forearm, than a bout of frigid wind, and followed up with a roundhouse kick. I bent my knees and rolled backward, effectively dodging both of the last two attacks. I skidded to a stop, then took off at a run, jumping into the air, flipping, and bringing my foot down in a deadly axe kick. Toshiro simply stepped to the side and I crashed into the mat. Almost before I could react, he quickly jabbed three punches at me, but I rolled to the side and blocked the last. He lashed his foot out sharply and I caught it like Hayden had done to me. Unlike Hayden, however, I used the fact that he was now off-balance to sweep his other leg out from under him, pivoting on my foot and one hand. He, too, crashed to the mat.

I scrambled back to my feet and wrapped my foot in water.

"Tempest Leg!" I proclaimed, doing a handstand like Sanji, flipping, and bringing my foot smashing down into Toshiro's exposed back.

_WHUMP_.

"Round three to red!" said the old man with a small smile. "The champion of the Fifty-Second Annual East Blue Karate Tournament has fallen to Digger D. Damon. Congratulations, kid!"

"Wait, no way!" sputtered Toshiro as he struggled to stand up, glaring at me. "He cheated! He had to have cheated! There's no way he could have defeated me so easily!"

"You think that... was easy?" I panted heavily, sweating profusely. "The whole time I felt slow and weak. That was probably one of the hardest battles I ever fought, and I don't mean injury-wise. Your speed was amazing but you were full of openings."

After that, I stumbled down to the bottom floor, where they stood me up on a podium and shouted how I won the tournament. They handed me my 100,000 belli prize and congratulated me some more. I humbly thanked them and went off to find Lucy.

* * *

"Where is that damn girl?" I cursed as I wandered the crazy streets of Loguetown. They'd been placed in a way that could easily get a newcomer lost, even if his or her sense of direction was a thousand times better than that of a certain Marimo. "If I don't find her in the next five minutes, I'm gonna go crazy."

I was lugging around my bag of belli and still breathing heavily from my battle with Toshiro, though now that I was out in the warm sun, I seemed to be getting some more energy back. I was looking for Lucy, but I wasn't finding her. Instead, all I got was Sanji chasing after random ladies, Nami carrying a bunch of bags filled to the brim with clothes, and Usopp checking out a gag shop.

I scanned the street for a straw hatted, black haired girl with a wide grin.

No such person.

"Hey, kid," a deep voice said. "You lost?"

I turned. Standing behind me and followed by a girl with blue hair and glasses was a man wearing a white coat with a bunch of cigars strapped to it. His face was squarish, his body was incredibly well toned, and he had blue green hair. A sheathed jitte was strapped to his back. He had brown gloves, blue jeans, and combat boots.

My eyes lit up with sparkles. I definitely recognized this guy from the anime. He was one of the few Marines with a true sense of justice.

"Y-You're Marine Captain Smoker!" I exclaimed in awe. "One of the few Marines with a sense of true justice! One of the only Marines who actually cares about the lives of citizens and his own men, and who would even overlook capturing a pirate to protect citizens! Dude, you're awesome! And behind you is Sergeant Major Tashigi, the beautiful, loyal, and caring student of Smoker who wishes to keep all the meito out of the hands of evil pirates! Can I have your autographs?"

They exchanged mystified glances, sweatdropping. "Er... sure," they conceded. They pulled out some paper and Tashigi found a pen in her pocket. They signed their names on the paper and it handed it to me. I grinned excitedly, stuffed it in my pocket, thanked them, and went off to find Lucy again, leaving them to wonder who the hell I was.

A scream came from above me and I looked up. It was Lucy flying through the air. I sweatdropped. What the hell was she doing now? Shaking my head in exasperated amusement, I raced off in the direction she'd been flying. I took a turn and ended up at a dead end, but there was an almighty crash from the other side of the wall and I decided to try and scale it.

After about an hour of trying to climb it and failing (I had decided against trying another route since these streets and alleys were so confusing), I drew water from the air, wrapped it around my fist, and smashed the wall to pieces with three Tempest Fists.

_Why the hell didn't I think of that before?_ I sighed. _Would have saved a lot of trouble._

When I emerged from the alley, I found myself in a quaint circle with a fountain in the middle. No one was here except a girl in a red vest and blue jean shorts and a straw hat. I sighed in relief. As I walked up to Lucy, her eyes snapped open and she popped up, looking around wildly.

"Oi, Lucy-chan!" I said, grinning and waving.

"Oh, Damon!" she said, turning to me and smiling widely. "So what's up? Didja win?"

"You better believe it," I quipped, showing her my bag of belli.

"Hey, do you know hot to get to Main Street from here? I met some smokey Marine ossan and fought him at the platform, but I accidentally flung myself all the way out here..."

"Baka," I sighed. "No, I don't. Come on, we'll find it together."

We dashed back out onto the streets of Loguetown, though I was a bit parched and my stomach was grumbling a little. We peered around, looking for the platform. Suddenly I caught sight of a cloaked dude with a strange red nose looking around, too, muttering, "Where's that straw hat bitch? She should be around here somewhere..."

Lucy was standing right next to him but had knelt down, out of the cloaked man's line of sight. She was muttering nearly the same thing except about the execution platform. They swapped directions, then both looked in the same way, right past me. I sweatdropped, though I shivered at the sight of the other man. The part of his face that was visible through the cowl of his cloak looked like a clown's.

"Where is she...?"

"Where is it...?"

"What are you looking for, girl?" the man said.

"Where's the execution platform?"

He pointed. "That way."

"Arigatou, ossan!" Lucy giggled, racing off in that direction. I sighed and shook my head at the two's similar idiocy, then took off after my captain. Behind us, there was a surprised gasp, and then the cloaked man yelled, "AH! THAT WAS THE STRAW HAT BITCH!"

Together, Lucy and I ran to the pirate king's execution platform, though I was a bit slower due to my heavy load of money.

* * *

**Oh my gods was that tournament cheesy... *shudders* This could very well be my least favorite chapter of the story that I've written so far. If nobody follows or favorites this story until the next chapter, I really will not be surprised. Seriously. That's how bad it is. I thought the comedy was good after the tournament, though... and Lucy and Buggy being idiots like always. XD Oh, and did anybody notice a running gag with Damon here? It happened once in the Baratie, another time here, and will keep popping up more in the future... though the people's reactions will definitely vary. lol credit to gamelover41592 for the idea of Damon's running gag.  
**

Damon: Running through a city when you're starving, thirsty, and lugging around a huge bag of money is NOT fun. And why do I have a feeling that something terrifying is coming up?...

Oi, don't break the fourth wall! Get back in your story, slave.

Damon: S-Slave?! Shit-author! I ain't nobody's slave!

You're mine... because I OWN YOU! MUAHAHAHA!

Lucy: I'm going back to the execution platform for sure! I've gotta see where the kaizokou king died!

Zoro: That damned Marine looked too much like Kuina... it was uncanny...

**Well, hope you liked this chapter though it honestly won't be a surprise if you didn't. Leave a review on what you liked, what you found funny, what you think I could change in the future, et cetera. You should really check out the Straw Hat Snippets companion series, too. I came out with a third one today that is all about Cracked-Up Kane back here in the real world, and his reactions to Damon's disappearance... plus a mysterious thing caused by Damon's disappearance!**** And for that part in this chapter about the week and a half in between this chapter and the last, it'll be in my Straw Hat Snippets. So if it confused you, just wait for me to post that snippet.  
**

**-TheRealEvanSG**


	20. No 20: Damon Frozen in Fear!

**Again, sorry for such a cheesy fight scene last chapter. I will try to never write something as terrible as that again. Well, anyway, a new chapter is here! And here are my replies to reviews on the previous chapter:**

**DarkLord98: **Yup, I was planning on a little side order of Zoro x Tashigi for you guys to enjoy. And also so that Damon can tease them every time they see each other. Cue evil laughter.

**gamelover41592: **If Damon has that problem with famous pirates, it would be reasonable for him to have it for good Marines and bounty hunters too. And again, arigatou!

**SugoiAuthorToBe:** Actually, I was kinda thinking of Toshiro Hitsugaya. I haven't read Slightly Overdone Chocolate Chip Pancakes in a while so I'm not sure, but you could be right. I dunno. It was a fan's idea anyway and I just took a liking to it. And to be honest, I feel like the whole Loguetown Arc is just a filler arc... whatever. You're welcome! I can't wait for _The Blood of Olympus_ either. Riordan-sama is just too awesome. XD No, I didn't know that, but it certainly makes sense. lol And to tell you the truth, I never even thought about the suitcase thing like that... but now that you mention it, it _does_ feel like something Carter would say! Ah, the irony. Not really. lol

**Chapter 20 start!  
**

* * *

Clowns Everywhere and the Woman Who Smiles on the Execution Platform!  


Damon Frozen in Fear!  


* * *

**Previously on ****One Piece Full Blast****:**

_"Where's the execution platform?"_

_He pointed. "That way."_

_"Arigatou, ossan!" Lucy giggled, racing off in that direction. I sighed and shook my head at the two's similar idiocy, then took off after my captain. Behind us, there was a surprised gasp, and then the cloaked man yelled, "AH! THAT WAS THE STRAW HAT BITCH!"_

_Together, Lucy and I ran to the pirate king's execution platform, though I was a bit slower due to my heavy load of money._

We came across Zoro on some steps, examining a new sword with a pleased look. I blinked. In the three weeks I'd been here, I'd only seem him smile a few times, and it was surprising whenever it happened. Normally, he was a grouchy bastard.

Lucy stretched up to the steps and said, "Ne, that's a sugoi katana Zoro!"

"N-Nani?" he said, jumping about a mile. "Don't scare me like that!"

I sighed and ran up to where the Marimo was sitting. Lucy was asking him what he was doing here, and he replied, "Same goes to you?"

"We're looking for the execution platform," I informed him as I finally reached the two.

Lucy grinned and placed her hands on her hips proudly. "We're lost."

I sweatdropped and Zoro asked, "Why are you proud about that?"

"I have no idea," I muttered, shaking my head at her antics. "Ne, so do you know where the platform is? Well actually, we just need Main Street. We can get to it from there."

"Hey, I saw him!" someone shouted in the crowd down below. "That bastard who captured our crew!"

I blinked and turned around, as did Zoro and Lucy. A mustached man in a tan cloak and a black hat was surrounded by five pirates who had various weapons.

"What's this?" Lucy asked.

I grinned. "Looks like a fight in the making!"

"You asshole!" one of the pirates cried, gripping his longsword. "You sold our entire crew to the Marines! We're going to make you pay! Die!"

The pirates all attacked at once.

There were four shots in rapid succession.

For a moment, nothing happened. Nobody moved. Time seemed to have stood still. Then the cloaked man revealed two guns and four of the pirates fell to the ground. Lucy and I stared in awe while Zoro just raised an eyebrow. The last man who had been left standing, a red haired young guy who fell to the ground, shaking, backed away a little. But the cloaked man walked forward, leaned down, and... pulled a cigarette from his pocket.

I gagged. What was up with people and smoking? It was just unhealthy!

"Go home and ask your mama to bake you some cake, boy," said mister mustache. The man cowered back, then screamed and ran off.

"WOW! SUGOI! That ossan beat all those pirates!" Lucy cheered, jumping up and down in excitement.

I nodded. "That was awesome!"

Zoro frowned thoughtfully. "That man's probably Daddy the Father."

My eyes lit up. "E-EH?! DADDY THE FATHER?! That cloaked dude's the famous Marine sharpshooter who suddenly descended into bounty hunting due to an incident with Usopp's dad?! OI, OSSAN!" I called. "CAN I HAVE YOUR AUTOGRAPH?!"

Daddy the Father tilted his head up and looked at me, an eyebrow raised. "...No."

I sunk to the steps in depression.

As the famous bounty hunter walked off, Lucy's stomach growled, and Zoro sighed. "Oi, guys. There's a restaurant just down the corner. Let's eat there."

I was brought out of my funk. "Eh? Food? Great, I'm starving!"

"YOSHA!" Lucy giggled. "Let's go the restaurant!"

And so we set off for the restaurant, though I wasn't complaining because I was starving, too. Fighting a tournament and smashing down a wall can really take it out of a guy, ya know? No? Screw you, then. Boring people...

Lunch was great. They actually had hamburgers and french fries! Little fun fact. Did you know that hamburgers are originally German? And french fries aren't from France, they're from Belgium. Er... as I was saying, they actually had a _bathroom_ at the restaurant. I was so tired of using the Merry's bicycle-powered chamber pot that a toilet seemed like a miracle. Seriously, I never realized how lucky I'd been to have a toilet back in the real world. Even on the streets, I was able to use public restrooms. Here, in the One Piece world? No such luck. Toilets were few and far between.

But enough about that. That's not really important. And kinda gross.

Strangely, the restaurant was playing some happy, cheerful song about a rubber woman with a mugiwara - - a straw hat - - that said how 'she will surely do it, gomu gomu no yeah-yeah.'

"Weird song," I muttered. "Ironic, eh? Makes you wonder who they're singing about on that radio."

Zoro shrugged and sipped his beer. "Who knows? It's a strange world."

The man in the green cloak and cowl from before was eating at a table behind us along with another cloaked guy, except his friend had a tall face and a white goatee. They were complaining about not being able to find some girl. I had a feeling this girl was Lucy, so I didn't let them know we were sitting right next to them.

Lucy sighed happily and leaned back in her chair, her belly now roughly the size of a wrecking ball. "Man," she burped. "I'm stuffed! I haven't had anything to eat since we got into Loguetown. I was getting pretty hungry."

I polished off the last of my fries. "Same here."

"Yeah, me too," Zoro agreed, pouring himself more booze. "I was starving but I didn't have any money left on me." He grinned. "Good thing I bumped into the two of you."

Lucy blinked. "If you mean money, I don't have any."

Zoro face-faulted and slammed his glass against the table. "NANI!?"

"Don't you have any?"

"Why the hell would I have any?!"

I sighed and rubbed my temple as Lucy erupted into giggles. "I'm still here, guys. I - -"

But the two ignored me. "So how are we gonna pay for this?"

"I dunno," Lucy said, shrugging. "Maybe they'll let us off."

"Oi, guys..." I cut in. They blinked and looked at me, then face-faulted as they remembered that I had a bag of 100,000 belli, but before I could offer to pay, the cloaked guy yelled and pounded his table. A bag soared through the air and landed on the brim of Lucy's hat. When we looked in, it was full of money.

"Oo, lucky!" our captain exclaimed, turning to the other customer. "Are you treating us, ossan? How nice of you!"

We set the bag back down on his table and walked off, me whistling. That had just saved me a bunch of money that I could now use on myself... _if_ Nami didn't confiscate it, that is.

"Thanks, dude!" I said as we exited the restaurant.

He paused a moment, then replied. "Don't... mention it."

"Come again!" The restaurant owner called as we left.

"Great food!" Lucy approved. As we walked down the street, we heard the cloaked dude suddenly shout in surprise and recognition.

"TH-THAT VOICE! ... YOU FLASHY SIMPLETON! GO CHASE AFTER HER NOW!" But we were already halfway down the road.

* * *

Suddenly a sharp wind ripped through the city and it blew off Lucy's hat. She gasped in surprise and ran after it before Zoro or I could react. "MATTE!" she called after it.

"Oi, matte yourself!" I complained, jogging after her. But when we turned the next corner, she was already gone.

Zoro hit the top of my head, making me wince. His fist was _hard_. "Why the hell did you have to lose Lucy, you baka?" he grumbled.

I rubbed my head, tic-pulsing. "Well I didn't _mean to_, dumbass! And besides, I don't see you finding her!"

"Spaz!" he spat.

My eye twitched. "Marimo!"

"Water-For-Brains!"

"Broken Compass!"

"ONI GIRI!"

"HAWK BLAST!"

"WHY THE HELL DO YOU TWO ALWAYS HAVE TO BE FIGHTING?!" Nami's voice screeched angrily, and her fist flew out of nowhere, hitting both of us in one fell swoop. We dropped to the cobblestone street with dizzy eyes. When my vision cleared, I saw her standing in front of Usopp and Sanji, who were holding a strange-looking fish and regarding us curiously.

I frowned. "What's that fish? It looks weird."

Sanji grinned and patted the creature, which was enormous, had a long snout, and also had two tusks. "Oh, this baby? It's a blue-finned elephant tuna. It's one of the rarest ingredients in the world and I won it in a cooking contest."

"And _I _have to carry the heavy end," Usopp whined.

"More importantly," Nami said, glaring at me, "you two need to just make up already! By the way, do you know where Lucy is? There's gonna be a storm soon and we've been searching for you guys everywhere."

_Oh, great. Just when we need Lucy, we lose her_, I thought. "Er, actually, she was just with us, but her hat got blown off by a gust of wind and she chased after it, making us lose her."

"That baka," the redhead muttered, shaking her head. "If she just had something to keep it on, this wouldn't be a problem..."

"Come on, let's look for her," I said. The four of us took in a random direction.

We managed to find Main Street again, but when we emerged from the alleyways, we saw chaos. Everyone in the street was running in the same direction, to the harbor. The were screaming in fear, and we stopped one guy to ask what was going on.

"Oi, you guys better hightail it outta here!" he gasped, panting. "The Buggy Pirates are in the town square!"

Zoro narrowed his eyes. "Did you say 'Buggy?'"

"Yeah! Buggy the Pirate is gonna execute Straw Hat Lucy!" The man took off, screaming in terror again.

"They're gonna execute her?" Usopp repeated in shock.

My body started shaking. Buggy the Clown... the _Clown_... not good! I hated clowns! Ugh, they're so creepy and... just disgusting! There used to be a time that I had enjoyed clowns, but now whenever I even saw or heard of a clown, I got afraid. Ever since the day one had destroyed the last thing my grandma ever gave me, I've associated clowns with destruction. And now one of them was gonna kill my captain. No, my _nakama_.

"Hey, Damon, what's wrong?" the sniper asked, noticing my state.

I sank to the ground, quivering. "C-Clowns," I managed. "Clowns. I... hate clowns."

"You're afraid of clowns?" Sanji summed up. "Jeez, what a fear at a time like this. You'd better get over it today, because we've gotta save Lucy! Here, keep this for me and treat it like a lady." This last part was directed to Usopp and was mentioning the tuna thing.

"Let's go," said Zoro, taking off in the direction opposite of the people running.

I hesitated and then nodded. I slipped a few belli out of my bag and tossed it to Nami, who somehow managed to catch it despite the oversized shopping bags she carried. "Put that in the crow's nest," I instructed her. The crow's nest had become as much of a home as my suitcase was to me. "I've got an execution to stop."

I tore after Zoro and Sanji and caught up to them. By now the sky had grown dark with storm clouds and there was an ominous feeling in the air. You could just tell something big was about to happen. I wasn't thinking straight, though, and couldn't remember this part of the anime because of my fear.

A gust of wind ripped an item from a street vendor's shop and flung it into my face. I ripped it away to see that it was an eye patch. I blinked. Toshiro's eye patch was really cool... I grinned despite my fear and flicked the street vendor, who was yelling obscenities at me, my belli coin and he shut up. While I ran, I hastily strapped on the eye patch and felt awesome.

Then I remembered what we were running towards and immediately lost that feeling.

"Jeez, how long _is _this street?" I muttered as we ran down it, but secretly I was thankful. Any thing that set back the time I had to meet the clowns would be welcomed.

Finally we broke through into the town square, where a huge crowd was standing stock still. We forced them to create a large circle for Lucy to be able to see us in and when they saw Zoro, they gladly obliged. "Gomendasai," Lucy was saying on the execution platform, a blank, bored look on her face. "I won't do it again. Please spare me."

"I WON'T SPARE YOU, YOU NINNY!" said the other person on the platform. He was tall, wore a striped red-and-white shirt, had blue hair tied back in a ponytail, and his nose was large and red.

CLOWN!

"This is the price you pay for making enemies of us!" shouted someone at the base of the platform, but I couldn't see who it was through the crowd.

"So this is the end of the woman who defeated me," said a smooth, silky woman's voice. "As for your crew, any men you have on it I shall make into my own personal boy toy! That is your punishment for getting Coby to say that _you_ are the most beautiful woman on the seas!"

"But isn't that Boa Hancock?" I muttered.

"Any last words, then?" offered Buggy. "We've got quite a crowd here. I'm sure they're all very interested in what you have to say." After a few seconds, he continued. "Well, it looks like you're speechless! You _are_ about to die, after all! Hahaha!"

"I AM THE GIRL WHO WILL BECOME KAIZOKOU QUEEN!" Lucy yelled. The statement echoed throughout the city and the people in the crowd started muttering amongst themselves, talking about what a crazy thing that was to say in this city.

"Well, I think it's about time to end this, eh?" the evil clown said. "Gum-Gum bitch."

"THIS EXECUTION..." roared Sanji, Zoro, and I, "IS CANCELLED!"

Lucy broke out in a grin. "Damon! Zoro! Sanji!"

Zoro thumbed open Wado Ichimonji and strapped on his green haramaki. "Aren't you taking this joke a bit too far, Lucy?" he hissed, smirking. "You sure know how to cause a ruckus, eh?"

"If it's time for the sideshow, then I guess I'll debut as well," added Sanji, lighting a cigarette.

Even though I was shaking worse than an ADHD kid hyped up on twenty packets of Skittles, I said, "Guess that makes it time for my stage performance, too. Looks like we just have to get rid of these damned clowns. Ready to play exterminator, guys?"

"Any time," Zoro chuckled darkly.

"P-Pirate Hunter Zoro!" the crowd shouted in fear, parting a wide path that we could take to the Buggy Pirates. But when I saw just how many clowns there _were_ in the crew, I froze up. I hadn't anticipated this amount. There had to be at least forty or fifty, and although some of them were less clown-like than others, all of them had something to do with the stupid occupation on.

"C-Clowns everywhere!" I stammered, my eyes widening as I backed away and fell on my butt. "Ew, get away, get away!"

"Damn Spaz," Zoro growled. "Just get over it and help us out, will ya? The more hands we have fighting these guys, the quicker well be able to get to the execution platform!"

"HEY, GUYS!" Lucy shouted.

"At last, Zoro!" cackled Buggy. "But I'm afraid you're just a tad too late." He slowly raised his cutlass.

"I'll start with the boy who has frozen at the sight of my beauty!" announced the woman, and when she pushed through the Buggy Pirates, I was able to see that she had a very feminine face, a pirate hat like Buggy's except tan, and a cloak with hearts on it.

As the love cook and the Marimo dived into the pirates, I was unmoving on the cobblestones. The woman was racing at me, and my mind was blank except for one thought: Danger! I was in too much danger! There were clowns everywhere, Lucy was about to be executed, a massive storm was brewing, and there was a strange woman who basically wanted to make me her slave of love. One of the pirates called her 'Alvida-neesama.' The back of my neck suddenly started tingling so much I felt like I'd go crazy.

Buggy laughed his head off. "Try all you want but you'll never stop me now! This is the flashy end of your captain!"

Then Lucy shouted something that made my blood run cold. Even Alvida, who was almost upon me, stopped for a moment when Lucy called out, "DAMON! ZORO! SANJI! USOPP! NAMI! SORRY! ...But I'm dead." As the enemy captain's sword descended upon her neck, she smiled.

Something inside me snapped. I snapped up to a stand and stuck my hand out, glaring at all the Buggy Pirates. Inwardly, though, I had no idea what was going on. _What is this feeling?_ _It's not fear... somehow I've gotten over that._ I felt angry, but that wasn't what was driving this new emotion. It was... I didn't know what it was. But as the sword drew ever closer to Lucy's rubbery neck, a raging wave roared in my ears and I shouted, "The gods have passed judgement! Today shall not be the day Monkey D. Lucy will die!" The water vapor in the air around the execution platform changed to liquid water and the wind howled. It blew off Lucy's hat and tossed it high into the air. A cyclone of water smashed the first support beam of the platform, then the second, then the third and finally the platform was leveled. Then it swooped in front of me and washed Alvida back among the Buggy Pirates.

I collapsed to the ground, exhausted and utterly confused.

Zoro and Sanji looked at me in shocked disbelief.

Just outside of the wreckage, a man with a blue ponytail sputtered water, his body twitching.

A straw hat floated down from the sky and was caught by a girl with a scar under her eye, who placed it back on her head. "Well, whaddya know?" giggled Lucy. "I'm alive. That's a nice surprise. Arigatou, Damon!"

The Buggy Pirates' jaws had dropped so far that they were nearly touching the ground.

"N-No problem," I rasped, my energy fading. "D-Don't mention it... K-Kaizokou Queen."

My vision faded and the world appeared to be eaten up by an all-consuming darkness as, overhead, lightning flashed and thunder rumbled.

* * *

**Sheesh. How annoying that I had to write over half of that TWICE. And I actually had more the first time, I just don't know exactly what I put. The reason for that is that after I saved it when I initially finished this chapter, the page just randomly crashed and said that 'This document has expired.' Then I refreshed it and clicked resend (I use Mozilla Firefox so I can do that) but it had totally erased over HALF of this chapter. Shit computer.  
**

Damon: ...

Lucy: Dude, why are you sleeping? That was awesome!

Damon: ...

Lucy: Hey, when did you get that eye patch? It's pretty cool, too!

Damon: ...

Usopp: *sweatdrops* Er, Luce, he's not gonna talk to you. He's unconscious. Unconscious people don't talk.

Lucy: REALLY? Weird.

**Follow or favorite if you liked this chapter and haven't done so already! Ha! Damon used such a strong move that he knocked himself out. And if you still haven't figured out what the running gag is yet, then you're denser than Lucy, because I used it AGAIN in the beginning of this chapter. Well, anyway, leave a review on what you liked, didn't, found funny, or think I could change in the future! (Anything is welcome as long as it doesn't interfere with the plot too much.) Oh, and please note that although popularity is not necessary for me to continue writing, I would really appreciate it.**

**-TheRealEvanSG**


	21. No 21: The Legend Truly Begins!

**Oh yeah! This shit's about to get real, bros and bras! The crew has finally escaped Loguetown and now they'll head off for Reverse Mountain! BTW I'm skipping over the Warship Island Arc. Sorry, but I just didn't like it too much. I thought it was kinda stupid to be honest. Well, here are my replies to reviews on the previous chapter:**

**SugoiAuthorToBe:** Yes, in a way, he is. XD Thank you! And yes, in the future he _will_ be able to control that move, but that won't be for a long time still. I'm thinking either after Water 7 or after the time skip. See, demigods aren't exactly mortal. They're half-mortal, half-immortal, so Chiwohiku can kill demigods just fine.

**DarkLord98:** I'll definitely do the Laboon Arc because unlike the Warship Island Arc, it's actually important to the future. Remember how Brook's one of the pirates on the crew that Laboon became friends with and followed to the Grand Line? Oh, and arigatou!

**gamelover41582: **Somehow I don't see Daddy the Father as someone who'd want to give out an autograph. And actually, if you go back and watch the Loguetown Arc, Luffy does meet him briefly when he finds Zoro on the steps. And again, arigatou!

**P.S., don't forget to watch out for the next book in this series! Because this is the last chapter! Follow or favorite my author's page, or even subscribe to my community _One Piece: Full Blast _for a sure-fire way to be updated.  
**

**Chapter 21 start!**

* * *

The Legend Truly Begins!

Sea King Infestations and Mystery Mountains

* * *

**Previously on ****One Piece Full Blast:**

_A straw hat floated down from the sky and was caught by a girl with a scar under her eye, who placed it back on her head. "Well, whaddya know?" giggled Lucy. "I'm alive. That's a nice surprise. Arigatou, Damon!"_

_The Buggy Pirates' jaws had dropped so far that they were nearly touching the ground._

_"N-No problem," I rasped, my energy fading. "D-Don't mention it... K-Kaizokou Queen."_

_My vision faded and the world appeared to be eaten up by an all-consuming darkness as, overhead, lightning flashed and thunder rumbled._

My dream was as weird as ever. In it, there were a bunch of skulls floating around an otherwise empty void. Half of them had red noses and wanted to decapitate me. The other half wore a straw hat and wanted food - - to be more precise, meat.

When I woke up, things weren't any better. In fact, they were worse. A huge storm was raging around, me, and the back of my neck was tingling, which was probably due to the rough ocean. I was gaining energy by the second. In no time at all, I was practically bursting with energy, and I wondered if it had anything to do with the storm. That was when I noticed something: The sea was _underneath_ me and I was flying through the air. Beside me, three people I knew very well were screaming bloody murder. The fourth, whose arm was stretched had been stretched around us while the other was holding her straw hat in place, was giggling.

"WHY THE HELL AM I FLYING?!" I roared over the howling wind.

Lucy, who was obviously the one carrying us, grinned and looked at me. "Oh! You're awake!"

"THAT DOESN'T ANSWER MY QUESTION!"

"We almost missed the ship because Nami was disembarking. I got caught up in a battle with some smokey Marine dude and Zoro was battling some blue haired lady. They seemed to know each other. Ah, well. It doesn't matter. A huge gust of wind blew us all to the harbor and I used Gum-Gum Rocket."

I stared at her. "That actually made sense."

"Nani? I can be sensible, ya know. Hey, where did you get that eye patch? It's sugoi!"

"WE'RE FLYING OVER THE SEA IN THE MIDDLE OF A HUMONGOUS STORM AND YOU'RE WORRIED ABOUT AN EYE PATCH!?"

"Yeah. So?"

"Why did I end up with such an idiotic captain?" I moaned, crying anime tears.

Zoro, Usopp, and Sanji were still screaming. And we weren't landing. I started screaming too. Then we were caught by the red cross-sail of the Going Merry, bounced off it, and tumbled to the deck, cursing our lives. My landing was soft, however, and when I opened my eyes I noticed Lucy was lying under me, face red. I blinked and looked down. I had landed in such a way that I was accidentally straddling her.

My face went beet red and I quickly rolled off her, stammering an unintelligible apology.

"I-It's okay," Lucy murmured, sounding flustered. She adjusted her precious straw hat nervously while Zoro claimed that he'd definitely kill her someday. I couldn't help but wonder why she was blushing...

"Minna!" Nami cheered, peering over at us and grinning widely.

I pointed swiftly at her and barked, "You didn't see anything!"

She tilted her head. "I didn't see what?"

"Never mind. Where's my bag?"

The redheaded navigator blinked and pointed vaguely upwards. "In the crow's nest, like you said. Why? What's in it? And where'd you get that eye patch?" Luckily I was saved from answering by a sudden flash of moving light. We all looked out to sea. A lighthouse was sticking up out of the ocean proudly.

"A lighthouse!" Lucy reported as the rest of us recovered.

"That means we're getting close to the Grand Line," Nami informed us, smiling. "That's our 'guiding light' to Reverse Mountain, the entrance to the Grand Line!"

Lucy went to stand next to her. "The entrance to the Grand Line is over there?"

"So what now?" the other girl asked.

I smirked. "What else? We go to the Grand Line!"

Usopp, who was hugging the main mast of the Merry, cried anime tears. "Are you really so crazy you'd want to go in a storm like this? Please, work with me here, man!"

Zoro simply nodded, a small smile on his own face. Sanji just gave a thumbs up and I sneered at him evilly. He turned blue and scooted to the other side of the mast.

Lucy giggled. "Yosha!"

"Minna," said Sanji. "Let's have a little launching ceremony to mark the importance of this voyage. I heard sailors do this whenever they go out on an important journey. You get a barrel, place your foot on it, state a promise or wish or dream, and then everyone smashes the barrel together."

We all grinned at each other and agreed to do it.

Sanji was first. "To find the All Blue."

"To become the first kaizokou queen!" Lucy announced, placing her foot on the barrel. I was suddenly glad she didn't wear skirts.

Zoro did it, too. "To become the greatest swordsman."

Nami took the next turn. "To draw a map of the world!"

I smirked and put my foot on the barrel. "To become the strongest martial artist and to save the world!"

Usopp gulped and thought quickly. "Uh... I-I'm... to become a brave warrior of the sea!"

"LET'S GO TO THE GRAND LINE!" Lucy roared, and we all raised our feet before smashing them down on the barrel's lid.

"AYE, CAPTAIN!" we agreed.

_CRASH_.

* * *

Although the rest of the evening was crazy and we worked like dogs trying to keep the ship from capsizing, I never got too tired. I didn't know why. When it was time to turn in, every one else was out before their heads hit the pillow. (For some reason, Lucy always slept in the boy's cabin even though she was a girl. Don't ask me why. I'll never know.) I, on the other hand, was up in the crow's nest feeling as though I'd sucked down a hundred Pixie Stix. Where the hell all this energy was coming from, I had no idea, but when I finally hit the sack, it only felt like a few seconds before Sanji was calling for breakfast.

"What's wrong with you, Damon?" Nami asked worriedly as we inhaled a breakfast of eggs and Canadian bacon. Don't ask me why it was still called Canadian even in this world, because again, I'll never know. "You don't look too good. Did that hurricane Lucy was talking about earlier take too much out of you?"

I sighed and rubbed my bleary eyes. I sipped coffee, trying to get myself awake. "No, just the opposite. I couldn't get to sleep last night because I had too much energy. Now I feel pooped, though. Like when a sugar high lifts you up, then sinks you down lower."

"Sugar?" Lucy piped up. "Food..."

"WE'RE HAVING BREAKFAST NOW, BAKA! WHY ARE YOU THINKING ABOUT THE NEXT MEAL?!"

The day after that was calm and clear. In fact, it was as though the worst storm I'd ever encountered never happened. There was still stuff to do, though. Sanji and Usopp raised the sails so that we could catch some wind. I drew moisture out of the now-waterlogged floorboards of the Merry so they wouldn't rot. Zoro did lookout duty for me, though the job was a bit harder now that a giant bag of belli was sitting in the crow's nest. Lucy was fishing off the side of the Merry but grew bored and sat on her captain's seat - - you know, the figurehead.

"So, Nami," I spoke up after I had finished my job. "How close are we to Reverse Mountain?"

"Well, we just left Loguetown two days ago, so it's gonna take some time to get there." She looked at me in approval and was about to call a crew meeting when there was the sound of three cannons firing. The back of my neck tingled as three cannonballs fell around the Merry and into the sea. I looked out to the back. "What the... Marines!? Now!?"

"Dammit, they never give up," Nami cursed. "And there's a whole fleet of 'em, too!"

Lucy and the others gathered on the port side to see them, too. "Oo!" Lucy giggled. "They must be here to collect the bounty on my head!"

"Yeah, but why is there a whole fleet?" Usopp moaned, shivering.

"They must've heard how hard it is to beat me! Shishishi! I'm just too strong!"

"That was your warning shot!" came a voice from over the ocean. "If you do not surrender, we will be forced to sink your ship and capture your captain."

"Told ya! Shishishi!"

"THAT'S NOT A GOOD THING!" I pointed out in exasperation.

"So, what do we do?" spoke up Zoro. "Give 'em hell?"

"Yeah!" Lucy agreed. "Let's fight!"

Usopp was not amused. "Why must we always do this?" he lamented. "How come there's always some type of danger whenever you guys are involved? How do you plan to take on an entire fleet? What the hell will raiding them do?"

"It'll do something."

"NANI!?"

I turned to my captain. "Lucy, you fling Zoro and Sanji over there. Usopp, you take command of the cannon as backup for us. I'll get myself onto their ships using my demigod powers."

"Hontou?" Usopp sighed in relief. "Yatta! Then leave it to me. And just in case we have to make a quick escape, I'll do that, too!"

"Good plan!" she approved. "Yosha! Let's do this!"

Zoro backed up, looking panicked. "Oi, matte! You're not gonna - -"

Suddenly Nami gasped and said, "Zoro, face the sails south! Damon, get back up in the crow's nest! Usopp, Sanji-kun, take control of the rudder and steer us hard to starboard!" We blinked and looked at each other, but she barked, "NOW!" and we immediately did as we were told.

"Hey, Nami!" I called from the crow's nest once I had scrambled up the net. "What's up?"

"Yeah, what's going on?" Lucy wondered.

She frowned. "A squall is coming. We'll catch it and get away." She looked out to the fleet. "There's no way we could take that many ships on with the number of hands we have now."

"We'd be fine," the straw hatted girl protested.

A sudden gust of wind pushed the sails out as far as they could go without ripping and we increased speed. Lucy yelped and had to hold her hat in place so it wouldn't fly off. Riding the wind at such a speed from this high up felt almost like a roller coaster with no seat belts. It was an exhilarating feeling, but also a terrifying one.

"Ne, we're going really fast!" Lucy giggled from the lower deck. "This wind's fun!"

Usopp glanced behind us and grinned. "Check it out, Luce! We're loosing the Marines! Ha ha! Just try to catch us now!"

But I was getting a bad feeling, a warning tingle in my neck. "Hey guys!" I called. "We're sailing towards something weird with the sea."

"Weird?" Nami muttered, checking a compass. "We're going south..."

After a few more minutes of the huge gust, the wind died down, as did our speed (considerably), and when I looked off into the horizon, the Marines were nowhere to be found. That worried me a bit. They wouldn't give up chasing a big name simply because of a little wind. They'd probably try to ride the wind, too, in hopes of catching up with us. And now that I was thinking about it, I was getting a cold feeling on my neck, like the one I got when we were passing the reef before our landing at Conomi Island. But I was getting it in multiple places, like there was more than one huge creature.

"Oi, guys!" I shouted, worried. "Something big's coming and it's got friends!"

Usopp was ignoring me. "Ha! Those dumb Marines will never catch up to us now! Another great victory for Captain Usopp-sama!"

"Sugoi! Cool!" Lucy approved. "That's my navigator!"

"Ah, Nami-san is so wonderful she can even predict the wind~!" Sanji cooed.

"Well, I just had a feeling. And hold on," said Nami. "Damon, did you say that some large creatures were coming?"

"Yeah, I did."

"Oi," Zoro cut in. "We don't seem to be moving. It's weird."

There was a pause. Nami and I looked around and sure enough, we didn't appear to be moving. The sails were flat. The small black flag on top of the mast wasn't flapping. In fact, when I looked at the ocean, it was completely still. "Ne, you're right, Zoro," I remarked. "Come to think of it, the sea's as flat as a pancake. Flatter, even." That fact worried me. I'd been sailing for over three weeks now, and I had never seen the ocean this calm. Not a single time.

Suddenly Nami let out a piercing scream.

"Eh? What's up, Nami?" Lucy asked.

"Nami-san?" worried Sanji.

"Oh, no..." moaned Nami in horror, her body shaking so bad I could see it even from this high up. "WE'VE ENTERED THE CALM BELT!"

This didn't exactly have the reaction she'd been expecting. Everybody except myself looked at each other, confused, even though I'd explained to them last week. They must've already forgotten. But I hadn't. I stared at the ocean - - the Calm Belt - - in horror.

"So then those large sea creatures I detected..." I gasped.

Nami nodded. Her voice sounded scared, and I bet her face was ashen. "Hai. Sea kings."

My neck tingled and suddenly the ship rocked violently everybody shouted in surprise and tried to regain our balance. It was hardest for me, because I was in the crow's nest and had very nearly been tossed over the side.

"What the... an earthquake?" Lucy guessed.

Sanji stared at her. "An earthquake on the ocean?"

"You guys!" Nami sighed. "Stop talking like we're fine! Roll up the sails and start rowing. Get us back to where we were before as soon as possible. Damon, make a current in the water that will take us back to the East Blue."

"HAI, NAMI-SAAAAAN!" said Sanji

"Yeah," I agreed, my face pale. "That was no earthquake."

Lucy tilted her head. "Back to East Blue?"

"What are you so worked up about? Why do we need to row?" Zoro complained. "This is a sailing ship."

Usopp, too, was unmoved. "Yeah, he's right! Why would we go back there when we just ran away from the Marines? Isn't it better out here, safer?"

"WOULD YOU JUST LISTEN TO ME!?" Nami roared. We had started moving again, albeit slowly, because I had already started up an ocean current to get us the hell out of here. "WE'RE IN REAL DEEP TROUBLE, HERE!"

"But the seas are so quiet!" Lucy protested.

"That's exactly it!" I agreed. "The seas are too quiet. We rode that wind too far and now we're in the Calm Belt. Sailing ships can't go through it because of two reasons: One, there is no wind or even water currents. Like, ever. You could spend a life time in the Calm Belt and you'd never feel a bit of wind. Also, there are even bigger problems, the sea kings. The Calm Belt is home to hundreds, thousands, even, of the biggest sea kings in the world."

"S-Sea kings!?" yelped Usopp.

Sanji stared at the sea. "So when the old fart said the Calm Belt was dangerous, this was what he meant?"

Nami nodded quickly. "That's right. So ROW THE HELL OUTTA HERE ALREADY!"

My neck tingled and I froze. "No, don't bother. It's already too late. They're surfacing."

The sea had started getting choppy and the ship shook once more. The back of my neck went crazy. Below us, water pushed upward almost by itself and we were lifted high up into the air. While Usopp and Nami screamed their heads off, I tried desperately to keep my balance but didn't need to worry about my belli bag. It was packed so tightly into the crow's nest that it wouldn't budge. As I looked out around us, I saw the same thing happening in multiple places in the ocean. One of the bulges of water had to enormous eyes sticking out of it.

"Eh? What's that?" Lucy asked, peering at it in interest.

"I don't want to be eaten!" moaned the local wimp.

Around us, the water cascaded off of the creatures' heads, and we were finally able to see them. One was like a giant, yellow frog, and another had a head shaped like a horse. One was long, pink, and had fluffy white rings around its body. The one we were on was a nightmare baby between a zebra and a whale.

Sanji's jaw nearly touched the floor. Usopp looked like he was gonna pass out. Nami was hugging the mast and crying anime tears. Our captain was staring at the sea kings like they were her next meal. Zoro was frozen as he stared at the monsters all around us. His reaction would've been hilarious if I hadn't been feeling the exact same thing as him: Pure terror. We slipped down the snout of the zebra-whale thing and halted to a stop, which finally tossed me off of the crow's nest with a horrified scream.

"The reason you can't cross the Calm Belt is because of _these things_!" Nami cried.

"What are we supposed to do now?" hissed Sanji.

"For now, nobody move a muscle!" Zoro advised. "We'll be back in the water soon, and then we're gonna row like hell!"

"HEY, MINNA!" I shouted. "I'M KINDA FALLING TO MY DEATH HERE!"

But maybe I should've stayed silent, because the shout caught the attention of the Frogzilla. The enormous yellow creature jumped out of the water and right at me. I was on a direct collision course with its throat.

"Damon!" Lucy gasped. "Don't die! I'll save you!" She stretched her arm down to me and managed to wrap it around my waist. She retracted me back high into the air above our ship, with me crying tears of fear all the way. Not a moment too soon. Just as I was rescued, the frog snapped its mouth shut. If she'd been even a second later, I'd have been fish food and Lucy might have lost her arm. I looked down. Lucy was hanging off the side of the ship, arm wrapped around the mast so she herself didn't fall.

"A-Arigatou," I managed.

"No problem!" she called back.

I noticed the zebra-whale had a nose and got an idea. "Oi, Lucy-chan! Stretch me back down there! I have an idea to get us out of this mess!" Come to think of it, Apis had this exact same idea in the anime. So I knew it would definitely work. And come to think of _that_, we'd been following the anime pretty closely. So why didn't Apis show up today? Maybe it was unimportant since the Warship Island Arc was just a filler?

"Sure," said Lucy.

She swung me down to and I passed the monster's nose. I swung there for a second and tried not to throw up. Then I reached out and yanked out a giant nose hair from it's nostril.

"Yosha! Beam me up, Scotty!" I cheered.

I wasn't sure if she'd understand, but luckily she did. As the sea king reared back, Lucy retracted her arm and I tumbled to the lower deck of the Merry, where I was caught by Zoro, who didn't appreciate the collision. The nose hair bounced away and fell into the ocean.

Lucy giggled. "That's one big nose hair!"

"Wait a damn second..." cried Usopp.

"If you do that..." moaned Nami.

Sanji's face was ashen. "That thing's gonna sneeze!"

"Exactly!" I agreed.

The sea king's nose twitched and the Going Merry creaked and groaned, shaking like crazy. Lucy announced that it was time to go, and then the zebra-whale let out a huge sneeze that caused us to fly over the entire monster infestation.

"Gesundheit!" I shouted.

A certain straw hatted girl was amazed. "Whoa! It feels like we're flying!"

"NANI!?" the other Straw Hats yelled in terror. "HOW CAN YOU TWO BE SO CAREFREE ABOUT THAT!"

"We _are_ flying!" Usopp corrected her.

_SPLASH_.

A few minutes of screaming later, we fell into the ocean and threw up a huge wave. I sighed in relief. My neck wasn't tingling any more and the surface of the sea was wavy. We had soared out of the Calm Belt. What wasn't good, though, was the fact that we were all still hanging in the air while our ship was below us. Lucy fixed this problem by wrapping herself around us and using her body as a cushion when we smashed into the Merry.

We rolled off her, cursing.

"Well, looks like we're back in the East Blue," said Nami in relief once we'd all recovered.

"Thank the gods," I sighed.

Zoro nodded, adding, "And no sign of the Marines."

Usopp had turned blue, like a Smurf. "I thought I was gonna die," he moaned.

"Yosha!" cheered Lucy. "Full sails! Our heading? Of course, it's the entrance to the Grand Line!"

* * *

The next three days were filled with nightmares about being eaten by frogs. Plus, some of them were mixed in with the terrible memory of the body of the demigod I'd killed outside of Arlong Park, Fennu. So to say that I wasn't very well rested when we saw the Red Line was like saying the Empire State Building is tall.

"Nami-san!" called Sanji. He was up in the crow's nest with me, helping me as co-lookout. "Report of love! There's dark clouds up ahead with a storm underneath!"

Leaning out over the railing, Nami sighed. "Guess we're back on our original course, then. We should see the Red Line soon."

Lucy stretched her arms up, latched onto the edge of the crow's nest, and flung herself up here with us. Now that there was three people in the lookout post at the same time, it was a bit crowded, but she didn't seem to mind. "Alright!" she giggled. "We're finally getting to the Grand Line!" She started patting Sanji on the back, but it wasn't really a pat so much as a hit. "Oi, Sanji! We're getting there~! We're getting there, man~! We're getting there!"

"I know!" Sanji cooed, his eyes turning to hearts as he swooned at his beloved captain's touch. "It's amazing, Lucy-CHWAN!"

She started hitting me, too. "Oi, Damon! We're getting there, man! We're getting there! We're getting there!"

I frowned and hit her over the head. "I can see that, now shut up."

"Meanie."

About two hours later, we had almost reached the storm and were done with lunch - - a delicious fish filet made with some salmon that Lucy and Usopp had caught the other day. Nami rolled out her map of the Grand Line, flattened it on the table, and slapped it, getting everyone's attention.

"Alright, guys, listen up!" she told us. "I've heard the rumors, but it's written here on the map, too. If it's true, then the entrance to Grand Line is a mountain." She was wearing a light blue diamond-patterned tank top with a darker blue heart over her sizable chest.

"A mountain?" Lucy repeated.

I grinned. "Is there an echo here or something?"

Snickers from Usopp. Then he went back to what he'd been doing previously: Trying desperately to move the rudder. But either he was weak or it was stuck, because it wasn't moving.

"You mean we have to crash through a mountain?" asked Zoro, raising an eyebrow. "The hell?"

"I thought it was crazy too," Nami soothed, "but there are canals drawn along the mountainside. That might mean we have to climb it."

"Oo, sounds like fun!" our captain approved.

"What are you talking about?" Zoro grumbled. "Even if there _was _a canal, it's impossible for a ship to climb a mountain."

"But that's what the map says!" the ginger protested.

Zoro was unmoved. "You stole that map from Buggy, right? You really want to trust it?"

I jumped in. "Oo, oo, I know this! The canals have such a strong current that they actually force themselves up the mountainside! But the currents on either side of the canals go down, and if we hit those, we'll smash into the Red Line and sink to the bottom of the ocean!"

"Listen to them!" Sanji barked at Zoro. "There's no way anything Nami-san says could be wrong!"

"Oi, Zoro!" Usopp whined.

Nami sighed. "Sanji-kun, go help Usopp with the steering rudder, will you? I can't think straight with all that noise!"

"HAI, NAMI-SWAN!" He wiggled over to the rudder. How the hell did his legs even _do_ that? He grabbed hold of the rudder and said, "Here we go~! ...Huh?" The rudder still didn't move.

"The current's too strong!" grunted his companion.

Come to think of it, my neck had been tingling for quite some time now...

"Eh?" Nami blinked and stood up. "Usopp, say that again."

"I said that the current's flowing too fast!"

The redhead frowned thoughtfully then her eyes widened in realization. "The current... so Damon was right! We must've sailed onto one of the currents around Reverse Mountain! We really _do_ have to climb the mountain!"

"You're still going on about that?" Zoro snorted.

Nami nodded and pointed to a spot on the map. "Listen: There's no doubt that the 'guiding light' last week was pointing to Reverse Mountain, which is on the Red Line."

Sanji had left the rudder to come look at the map, and Usopp yelled, "WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO HERE?"

The ginger ignored him and pointed to a blue line drawn horizontally from the center of Reverse Mountain to the Grand Line. "See this? If the other four lines from the Blues flow up the mountain, they'd meet at the top and flow straight down it _here_ into the Grand Line."

I tilted my head. "There's one part about that I don't get. Wouldn't we have so much force from the current that when we reach the top, we'd soar over the meeting point and down into either one of the other Blue currents or the mountain itself?"

Nami shrugged. "I don't know. I guess we'll see once we get there. Do you guys understand?"

Lucy rubbed her chin and grinned. "I get it! It's a mystery mountain, right? Shishishi!"

"IT'S NOT A MYSTERY!" I yelled, hitting her upside the head in frustration and exasperation. "WE JUST SPENT, LIKE, THREE MINUTES EXPLAINING IT TO YOU!"

The other girl sighed. "I don't think you get it at all... In any case, our ship is already riding on either the current up to the mountain, or the currents going straight down. So if we're lucky and if we don't mess up our steering, we should make it up Reverse Mountain in one piece."

I chuckled. "Ha! One piece! Nice pun!"

"IT WASN'T A PUN!"

"NAMI-SAN, YOU'RE SO AWESOME!" I don't even need to point out who said that...

Zoro was set permanently against it. "I ain't never heard of that. Ships climbing mountains."

"I've heard something!" Sanji cut in.

"About the mystery mountain?" wondered Lucy.

"No, not really. Just that about half of everyone who attempts to enter the Grand Line dies trying. So I know it ain't easy to get in."

My neck's tingling grew stronger and we heard it start raining outside.

"Sanji-kun, furl up the sails!" Nami ordered.

"HAI, NAMI-SWAAAN! Damon, get your ass over here!"

"Oh, come on!"

I sighed and ran out of the kitchen with the love cook. We scooted up the main mast and dashed along the thick poles sticking out on either side of the mast that the sails were attached to. I heaved and pulled with all my might, dragging the heavy canvas up and hanging onto the ropes for dear life. The wind was so strong I felt like a rag doll. A single gust could blow me off at any time, either tossing me into the sea (in which case, I'd probably survive because of my demigod powers) or tossing me into the ship (in which case I'd become a Damon-pancake). As I was thinking about this, I happened to look up. What I saw made me gasp. A red rock wall was reaching out of the ocean in front of us, and it was so tall I couldn't see the top. It was taller than the clouds! It was so huge I nearly crapped myself!

"Oi!" I called. "Reverse Mountain dead ahead!"

Everyone else ran out of the kitchen and gasped. "Man, it's huge!" commented Usopp. Because of my current position, I couldn't see his face, but I thought his expression must've been hilarious.

"The entrance to the Grand Line..." Nami said in a small voice.

"Lucy, catch me!" I shouted over the roar of the wind. I let go of my perch, having successfully furled up my side of the sails, and for a moment had the frightening sensation of dropping into space. Then I felt an arm wrap around me and I was pulled into a soft landing. I rolled off Lucy and thanked her.

Lucy grinned. "No problem!" Then she stood up and turned again, squealing in excitement. "So that's the Red Line, eh?"

"Y-You c-can't even see past the clouds!" Usopp reported, looking stricken.

I frowned. "Where's the canal? I can't see it!"

Suddenly my neck went crazy and the ship rocked a little. Lucy screamed, "We're getting sucked in!"

"Grab the helm!" Nami commanded. "Damon, try to make a current into the canal entrance! There's a small break in the mountain; that's where we want to go!"

I squinted and saw what she was talking about. "Right, I'm on it!" I sent my thoughts out to the sea, but it was wild and rough. I was feeling extremely energized, however, despite my lack of sleep, and I commanded it sharply to flow into the canal. There was a moment where it resisted my order, and I shouted in my mind, _DO IT NOW!_ Finally, the patch of sea we were sailing on changed direction and flowed into the current that was pushing up Reverse Mountain.

It had taken a lot out of me, though, and I fell to my knees, panting.

Zoro had a pair of binoculars and was peering through them at the crack, jaw dropped. "I-I... I don't believe it!" he muttered. "The water really _is_... climbing up the mountain!"

I raised my eyebrow. Even though I'd been pretty much accepting everything before this point, I wouldn't be able to believe this unless I saw it with my own eyes. I ripped the binoculars away from the Marimo and looked at the crack myself. I did a double-take. Nearly crapped myself again. The water was moving so fast it was actually flowing _uphill past the clouds!_ There was also a series of gates that had been built up in the entrance of the canal that had Japanese kanji on them, saying things like _Good luck! _and _May God be with you; yo__u'll need him where you're going_.

"Make sure we keep a straight course!" Nami yelled. "If we don't, the ship'll smash into pieces on the cliff!"

A horrible image of the Merry crashing into that giant, unbreakable will flashed through my mind. I swiveled around and glared at Usopp and Sanji, who were manning the helm. "IF YOU TWO BAKAS GET US KILLED, I'M GONNA KILL YOU!"

"That doesn't even make any sense!" Usopp pointed out, grunting with the effort of trying to move the helm. "How can you kill us if we're already dead?"

"I DON'T KNOW, BUT I'LL FIND A WAY SOMEHOW!"

"We're drifting!" noticed Lucy. "Go to the right! Right, right, right!"

"The right?" said the teen with the world's longest nose. "Okay, hard to starboard!" He and Sanji heaved with all their might, but as I was watching, the helm still didn't budge. In fact, it broke.

"YOU BASTARDS!" I screamed, my voice actually getting a little hoarse. "I'M GONNA KILL YOU SOMEDAY!" I swiftly turned and sent my thoughts out to the sea again, forcing the rebelling current to get us back on the correct path.

Just in time. Even a second slower and we'd have smashed into the water gate.

Sanji and Usopp were doing a victory dance in the kitchen.

Lucy, holding onto her hat to keep it in place, grinned in triumph.

As one, us Straw Hats roared, "WE DID IT!"

_We had made it into Reverse Mountain_. We had a straight path up to the sky, and the next stop, if all went well and we didn't soar into the other side of the mountain like I'd asked, then the next stop was the Grand Line.

**TO BE CONTINUED**


	22. THE SEQUEL IS UP!

**Hey guys!**

**TheRealEvanSG-sama here with an important notice to all fans of One Piece Full Blast who did not decide to do anything to get a notice on my upcoming sequel, ****_OP Full Blast: Across the Sands_****. I did not originally think to do this, but I just want to let you know that the first chapter has been released!**

**Go check it out and let me know what you think! Have a good time reading it! You'd better go look at it now or else I'm gonna sic a hundred Archetypes on you. lol jk**

**-TheRealEvanSG**


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